Her lips moved; but she was too terrified to answer.

It was Giojoso who stepped forward to inform my mother of the girl's name and condition.

And upon learning it her anger seemed to increase.
"A kitchen-wench!" she cried.

"O horror!" And quite suddenly, as if by inspiration, scarce knowing what I said or that I spoke at all, I answered her out of the store of the theological learning with which she had had me stuffed.
"We are all equals in the sight of God, madam mother." She flashed me a glance of anger, of pious anger than which none can be more terrible.
"Blasphemer!" she denounced me.

"What has God to do with this ?" She waited for no answer, rightly judging, perhaps, that I had none to offer.
"And as for that wanton," she commanded, turning fiercely to Giojoso, "let her be whipped hence and out of the town of Mondolfo.