the struggle between her awe of Romola
and the desire to speak unseasonably.

"Let be, for the present," she thought; "but it seems to me a thousand
years till I tell this little contadina, who seems not to know how many
fingers she's got on her hand, who Romola is. And I _will_ tell her
some day, else she'll never know her place. It's all very well for
Romola;--nobody will call their souls their own when she's by; but if
I'm to have this puss-faced minx living in my house she must be humble
to me."

However, Monna Brigida wanted to give the children too many sweets for
their supper, and confessed to Romola, the last thing before going to
bed, that it would be a shame not to take care of such cherubs.

"But you must give up to me a little, Romola, about their eating, and
those things. For you have never had a baby, and I had twins, only they
died as soon as they were born."

CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE.

THE CONFESSION.

When Romola brought home Tessa and the children, April was already near
its close, and the other great anxiety on her mind had been wrought to
its highest pitch by the publication in print of Fra Girolamo's Trial,
or rather of the confessions drawn from him by the sixteen Florentine
citizens commissioned to interrogate him. The appearance of this
document, issued by order of the Signoria, had called forth such strong
expressions of public suspicion and discontent, that severe measures
were immediately taken for recalling it. Of course there were copies
accidentally mislaid, and a second edition, _not_ by order of the
Signoria, was soon in the hands of eager readers.

Romola, who began to despair of ever speaking with Fra Girolamo, read
this evidence again and again, desiring to judge it by some clearer
light than the contradictory impressions that were taking the form of
assertions in the mouths of both partisans and enemies.

In the more devout followers of Savonarola his want of constancy under
torture, and his retraction of prophetic claims, had produced a
consternation too profound to be at once displaced as it ultimately was
by the suspicion, which soon grew into a positive datum, that any
reported words of his which were in inexplicable contradiction to their
faith in him, had not come from the lips of the prophet, but from the
falsifying pen of Ser Ceccone, that notary of evil repute, who had made
the digest of the examination. But there were obvious facts that at
once threw discredit