It is early this year.

All this wet weather.

Why, your hand is shaking worse than mine!" said the sick man, as the old monk handed him his draught.

And it was true enough that not only Father Fabiano's hands were shaking, but he was, indeed, trembling all over; and any one but a sick man, lying as the fevered lay-brother was lying, could not have failed to see that it was from mental agitation, rather than from the shivering of incipient ague, that he was suffering.
"You think of getting well yourself, brother Simone.

I have not got the fever yet," said the monk, making an effort to control himself and speak in his ordinary manner.
"May the saints grant that your reverence do not fall ill before I am able to get up, or I don't know what we should do." "It is years, brother Simone, that make my hand shake, more than ague this time, years, and many a former touch of the fever.