e woman who stretches forth her hands with her own
people, and craves a blessing for them; and feels a close sisterhood
with the neighbour who kneels beside her and is not of her own blood;
and thinks of the mighty purpose that God has for Florence; and waits
and endures because the promised work is great, and she feels herself
little."

"I was not going away to ease and self-indulgence," said Romola, raising
her head again, with a prompting to vindicate herself. "I was going
away to hardship. I expect no joy: it is gone from my life."

"You are seeking your own will, my daughter. You are seeking some good
other than the law you are bound to obey. But how will you find good?
It is not a thing of choice: it is a river that flows from the foot of
the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience. I say again,
man cannot choose his duties. You may choose to forsake your duties,
and choose not to have the sorrow they bring. But you will go forth;
and what will you find, my daughter? Sorrow without duty--bitter herbs,
and no bread with them."

"But if you knew," said Romola, clasping her hands and pressing them
tight, as she looked pleadingly at Fra Girolamo; "if you knew what it
was to me--how impossible it seemed to me to bear it."

"My daughter," he said, pointing to the cord round Romola's neck, "you
carry something within your mantle; draw it forth, and look at it."

Romola gave a slight start, but her impulse now was to do just what
Savonarola told her. Her self-doubt was grappled by a stronger will and
a stronger conviction than her own. She drew forth the crucifix. Still
pointing towards it, he said--

"There, my daughter, is the image of a Supreme Offering, made by Supreme
Love, because the need of man was great."

He paused, and she held the crucifix trembling--trembling under a sudden
impression of the wide distance between her present and her past self.
What a length of road she had travelled through since she first took
that crucifix from the Frate's hands! Had life as many secrets before
her still as it had for her then, in her young blindness? It was a
thought that helped all other subduing influences; and at the sound of
Fra Girolamo's voice again, Romola, with a quick involuntary movement,
pressed the crucifix against her mantle and looked at him with more
submission than before.

"Conform your life to that image, my daughter; make your sorrow an
offering: and when the fire of Di