ongue at me, saying,
"Prince of liars!"

Straightway I made as if I would catch them and slap them, and they all
ran away laughing, and Messer Guido and I were left alone, at the corner
of the bridge of the Holy Felicity, with the image of the God of Love
hard by.

"Good-bye, lilies of life!" I called after the flying fugitives, kissing
my hand at them; and then I turned to my friend. "This lady Beatrice," I
questioned, "is she very fair?" For though I had heard not a little of
her return to our city from Fiesole, I had not yet seen her, and I am
always curious--I mean I was then always curious--about fair women.

"Angel fair," Guido answered, briskly. "Our Florence is ever a nest of
loveliness, but no one of her women is fairer than Folco's daughter."

"May be she seems fairer, being strange," I hinted, quizzically. "Are we
not Athenian in our love of new things?"

Guido answered me very gravely. "I think we should have held her as
precious if she had never left us."

Now, I had never given the affairs of the Portinari many thoughts, and
though I had heard how Messer Folco had brought his daughter home of
late from Fiesole, I knew nothing more than so much, wherefore I
questioned, less because I cared, than because Messer Guido seemed to
care, "Why did she leave us?"

Guido seated himself by my side on the parapet, swinging his slim legs,
and told the tale he wanted to tell.

"It is nine years ago. She was one of those fairy children--I remember
her very well--too divine, too bright, it might seem, to hold in the
four walls of any mortal mansion. That as it may, the physicians found
her a delicate piece of flesh, and so banished her out of our hot
Florence into the green coolness of the hills."

I do not think that I cared very much about what Messer Guido was
telling me, but because I loved him I feigned to care.

"And has she lived there ever since?" I asked, with such show of
interest as I could muster.

And he answered me, very lively. "There she has lived ever since. But
now Messer Folco, being reassured of her health, brings her to Florence,
where her beauty will break hearts, I promise."

I think he sighed a little, and I know that I laughed as I spoke. "Well,
I that have broken my heart a hundred times will break it again for her,
if she pleases."

Messer Guido grinned at me a little maliciously. "Better not let Messer
Simone dei Bardi hear you," he said, and his words suddenly brought
before m