de the frock?

_Filippo._ It was indeed, Holy Father! I never had the courage to
mention it in confession among my manifold offences.

_Eugenius._ Bad! bad! Repentance is of little use to the sinner,
unless he pour it from a full and overflowing heart into the capacious
ear of the confessor. Ye must not go straightforward and bluntly up to
your Maker, startling Him with the horrors of your guilty conscience.
Order, decency, time, place, opportunity, must be observed.

_Filippo._ I have observed the greater part of them: time, place, and
opportunity.

_Eugenius._ That is much. In consideration of it, I hereby absolve
thee.

_Filippo._ I feel quite easy, quite new-born.

_Eugenius._ I am desirous of hearing what sort of feelings thou
experiencest, when thou givest loose to thy intractable and unruly
wishes. Now, this love of the world, what can it mean? A love of
music, of dancing, of riding? What in short is it in thee?

_Filippo._ Holy Father! I was ever of a hot and amorous constitution.

_Eugenius._ Well, well! I can guess, within a trifle, what that leads
unto. I very much disapprove of it, whatever it may be. And then? and
then? Prithee go on: I am inflamed with a miraculous zeal to cleanse
thee.

_Filippo._ I have committed many follies, and some sins.

_Eugenius._ Let me hear the sins; I do not trouble my head about the
follies; the Church has no business with them. The State is founded on
follies, the Church on sins. Come then, unsack them.

_Filippo._ Concupiscence is both a folly and a sin. I felt more and
more of it when I ceased to be a monk, not having (for a time) so
ready means of allaying it.

_Eugenius._ No doubt. Thou shouldst have thought again and again
before thou strippedst off the cowl.

_Filippo._ Ah! Holy Father! I am sore at heart. I thought indeed how
often it had held two heads together under it, and that stripping it
off was double decapitation. But compensation and contentment came,
and we were warm enough without it.

_Eugenius._ I am minded to reprove thee gravely. No wonder it pleased
the Virgin, and the saints about her, to permit that the enemy of our
faith should lead thee captive into Barbary.

_Filippo._ The pleasure was all on their side.

_Eugenius._ I have heard a great many stories both of males and
females who were taken by Tunisians and Algerines: and although there
is a sameness in certain parts of them, my especial benevolence toward
thee, worthy Filippo,