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The sister of Monna Bianca's sister-in-law was a marriageable woman, Fra Palamone was in the house with her, and was there caught by the Inquisition and haled off to their house of correction. Virginia and I set out at liberty to Florence, decently clad, decently shod, with the remains of our ten florins in my breeches pocket. I remember Monna Bianca's parting advice very well.
Romola's mind was oppressed with thoughts; she needed to be alone as soon as possible, but with her habitual care for the least fortunate, she turned aside to put her hand in a friendly way on Monna Lisa's shoulder and make her a farewell sign. Before the old woman had finished her deep reverence, Romola had disappeared.
Francis himself had never the like at Assisi. Now it so befell that among the ladies that came to confess to this holy friar was one Monna Lisetta of Ca' Quirino, the young, silly, empty-headed wife of a great merchant, who was gone with the galleys to Flanders.
Simone of the Bardi, never a pleasant man in his best moods, would be very far indeed from proving a pleasant man to any crosser of his purpose, even if that crosser were a woman as fair as Monna Vittoria. The woman's imagination could feel the grip of Simone's fingers about her throat, and she shivered at the thought in the warm air.
The Duke himself sat on Monna Bianca's right, whilst on her left was Cosimo. Heeding little whether I was observed or not, I sank to a vacant place, midway down the board, between one of the Duke's pretty young gentlemen and one of the ladies of that curious train a bold-eyed Roman woman, whose name, I remember, was Valeria Cesarini, but who matters nothing in these pages.
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.
The evasion of his authority by means of nominally private performances has brought into brief life on the boards very few pieces in my time in which one can really see evidence of the youthful desire to shock the Philistine. In Ghosts, Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont, and Monna Vanna, though all three were prohibited by the authority, there is no sign of the particular element in question.
It seems that Monna Vittoria, being a woman, and shrewd, and knowing her Simone pretty well, saw clearer through the device of the Company of Death when it was first hinted at than any of the feather-headed enthusiasts who were eager to swell its levy.
"Romola, look at me!" said Monna Brigida, in a piteous tone, putting out both her hands. The white troop was already moving away, with a slight consciousness that its zeal about the head-gear had been superabundant enough to afford a dispensation from any further demand for penitential offerings.
It seems to be as if a childish girl had at once shot up into deep-thinking and impassioned woman, ready to make exertions alike, and sacrifices, with all that vain devotion to a favourite object of affection, which is often so basely rewarded." The Lady Hermione sighed bitterly, and Monna Paula entered ere the conversation proceeded farther.
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