"The longing of the godly heart of a pure maiden--mark this well--has naught in common with that diabolical delight in secret love--dalliance for which others yearn.

My wish to force my way to her was sinful, and it was punished severely enough, for during your rude scoffs I felt as though you had set fire to the house over my head.

But from this I perceive in what a sacred, inviolable spot her image had found a place.

True, it is denied you to follow the lofty, heavenward aspiration of a pure soul--" "O my lord," interrupted the servitor with hands uplifted in defence, "who besought you not to measure this innocent daughter of a decorous household, who was scarcely beyond childhood, by the standard you applied to others?
Who entreated you to spare her fair fame?
And if you deem the stuff of which the servant is made too coarse to understand what moves so pure a soul, you do Biberli injustice, for, by my patron saint, though duty commanded me to interpose doubts and scruples between you and a passion from which could scarcely spring aught that would bring joy to your mother's heart I, too, asked myself the question why, in these days, a devout maiden should not long to try her skill in conversion upon a valiant knight who served her.

Ever since St.Francis of Assisi appeared in Italy, barefooted monks and grey-robed nuns, who follow him, Franciscans and Sisters of St.Clare stream hither as water flows into a mill-race when the sluice-gates are opened.