ly pride in
remarking that the old lady became it well. Her air and mien were indeed
those of one to whom such garments were habitual; and they seemed that
day more than usually austere and stately.

She smoothed the boy's ringlets, drew his short mantle more gracefully
over his shoulder, and then placed in his belt a poniard whose handle
was richly studded, and a purse well filled with florins.

"Learn to use both discreetly," said she; "and, whether I live or die,
you will never require to wield the poniard to procure the gold."

"This, then," cried Angelo, enchanted, "is a real poniard to fight the
robbers with! Ah, with this I should not fear Fra Moreale, who wronged
thee so. I trust I may yet avenge thee, though thou didst rate me so
just now for ingratitude."

"I am avenged. Nourish not such thoughts, my son, they are sinful;
at least I fear so. Draw to the board and eat; we will go betimes, as
petitioners should do."

Angelo had soon finished his morning meal, and sallying with Ursula to
the porch, he saw, to his surprise, four of those servitors who then
usually attended persons of distinction, and who were to be hired in
every city, for the convenience of strangers or the holyday ostentation
of the gayer citizens.

"How grand we are today!" said he, clapping his hands with an eagerness
which Ursula failed not to reprove.

"It is not for vain show," she added, "which true nobility can well
dispense with, but that we may the more readily gain admittance to the
palace. These princes of yesterday are not easy of audience to the over
humble."

"Oh! but you are wrong this time," said the boy. "The Tribune gives
audience to all men, the poorest as the richest. Nay, there is not a
ragged boor, or a bare-footed friar, who does not win access to him
sooner than the proudest baron. That's why the people love him so.
And he devotes one day of the week to receiving the widows and the
orphans;--and you know, dame, I am an orphan."

Ursula, already occupied with her own thoughts, did not answer, and
scarcely heard, the boy; but leaning on his young arm, and preceded by
the footmen to clear the way, passed slowly towards the palace of the
Capitol.

A wonderful thing would it have been to a more observant eye, to note
the change which two or three short months of the stern but salutary
and wise rule of the Tribune had effected in the streets of Rome. You
no longer beheld the gaunt and mail-clad forms of foreign mer