"They are too narrow and too rough." "No," answered Veronica, as she stepped from the carriage upon the muddy stones.

"I will walk.

If the streets are good enough for my people, they are good enough for me." Even to the good priest this seemed a little exaggeration on her part.
But she had seen much that day of which she had never dreamed, and in her generous heart there was a sort of fierce wrath against so much misery, with a strong impulse to share it or cure it, to face the devil on his own ground, and beat him to death, hand to hand.

It was perhaps foolish of her to walk to her own gate, but there was nothing to be ashamed of in the feeling which prompted her to do it.
Don Teodoro walked beside her on the left, and Elettra pressed close to her on the right, as they threaded the foul black lanes towards the castle.

The moment she had left the carriage, men and women and children had seized eagerly upon her belongings, to carry the bags and rugs and little packages, and now they followed her in a compact crowd, all talking together in harsh undertones; and from the dark doorways, as she went by, old women and old men came out, and more children, half clothed in rags, and cripples four or five.