The market-place was thronged with a
perpetually shifting crowd, laughing, joking, bargaining
for dried figs, cheap cakes, and sunflower
seeds. The brown, bare-footed children sprawled,
face downward, on the pavement in the hot sun,
while their mothers sat under the trees with their
baskets of butter and eggs.
Monsignor Montanelli, coming out to wish the
people "Good-morning," was at once surrounded
by a clamourous throng of children, holding up for
his acceptance great bunches of irises and scarlet
poppies and sweet white narcissus from the mountain
slopes. His passion for wild flowers was
affectionately tolerated by the people, as one of
the little follies which sit gracefully on very wise
men. If anyone less universally beloved had filled
his house with weeds and grasses they would have
laughed at him; but the "blessed Cardinal" could
afford a few harmless eccentricities.
"Well, Mariuccia," he said, stopping to pat one of
the children on the head; "you have grown since I saw
you last.
Pages:
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399