I can have that when I like.' 'And such as you like,' grumbled the old priest, as she swept up the steps, tossing some small coin to the ragged boys, and murmuring to herself, loud enough for Philammon's hearing, that she should certainly inform the confessor, and that she would not be insulted in the streets by savage monks.
'Now she will confess her sins inside--all but those which she has been showing off to us here outside, and beat her breast, and weep like a very Magdalen; and then the worthy man will comfort her with--"What a beautiful chain! And what a shawl--allow me to touch it! How soft and delicate this Indian wool! Ah! if you knew the debts which I have been compelled to incur in the service of the sanctuary!--" And then of course the answer will be, as, indeed, he expects it should, that if it can be of the least use in the service of the Temple, she, of course, will think it only too great an honour....

And he will keep the chain, and perhaps the shawl too.

And she will go home, believing that she has fulfilled to the very letter the command to break off her sins by almsgiving, and only sorry that the good priest happened to hit on that particular gewgaw!' 'What,' asked Philammon; 'dare she actually not refuse such importunity ?' 'From a poor priest like me, stoutly enough; but from a popular ecclesiastic like him....

As Jerome says, in a letter of his I once saw, ladies think twice in such cases before they offend the city newsmonger.
Have you anything more to say ?' Philammon had nothing to say; and wisely held his peace, while the old grumbler ran on-- 'Ah, boy, you have yet to learn city fashions! When you are a little older, instead of speaking unpleasant truths to a fine lady with a cross on her forehead, you will be ready to run to the Pillars of Hercules at her beck and nod, for the sake of her disinterested help towards a fashionable pulpit, or perhaps a bishopric.

The ladies settle that for us here.' 'The women ?' 'The women, lad.