e necklaces round it, it looked better than Monna Berta's. This very
day, when she was preparing for the Piagnone Carnival, such a struggle
had occurred, and the conflicting fears and longings which caused the
struggle, caused her to turn back and seek refuge in the druggist's shop
rather than encounter the collectors of the Anathema when Romola was not
by her side. But Monna Brigida was not quite rapid enough in her
retreat. She had been descried, even before she turned away, by the
white-robed boys in the rear of those who wheeled round towards Tessa,
and the willingness with which Tessa was given up was, perhaps, slightly
due to the fact that part of the troop had already accosted a personage
carrying more markedly upon her the dangerous weight of the Anathema.
It happened that several of this troop were at the youngest age taken
into peculiar training; and a small fellow of ten, his olive wreath
resting above cherubic cheeks and wide brown eyes, his imagination
really possessed with a hovering awe at existence as something in which
great consequences impended on being good or bad, his longings
nevertheless running in the direction of mastery and mischief, was the
first to reach Monna Brigida and place himself across her path. She
felt angry, and looked for an open door, but there was not one at hand,
and by attempting to escape now, she would only make things worse. But
it was not the cherubic-faced young one who first addressed her; it was
a youth of fifteen, who held one handle of a wide basket.

"Venerable mother!" he began, "the blessed Jesus commands you to give up
the Anathema which you carry upon you. That cap embroidered with
pearls, those jewels that fasten up your false hair--let them be given
up and sold for the poor; and cast the hair itself away from you, as a
lie that is only fit for burning. Doubtless, too, you have other jewels
under your silk mantle."

"Yes, lady," said the youth at the other handle, who had many of Fra
Girolamo's phrases by heart, "they are too heavy for you: they are
heavier than a millstone, and are weighting you for perdition. Will you
adorn yourself with the hunger of the poor, and be proud to carry God's
curse upon your head?"

"In truth you are old, buona madre," said the cherubic boy, in a sweet
soprano. "You look very ugly with the red on your cheeks and that black
glistening hair, and those fine things. It is only Satan who can like
to see you. Your Angel is s