"
"May one ask the name of the disputant who is to respond?" a stranger
questioned courteously of Don Ambrogio.
"It is a brother who hath but entered their order yesterday," Don
Ambrogio answered, with some hesitation, "by name Pierino--nay, Fra
Paolo. He is reputed learned; yet if the methods of the order be strange
to him, one should grant indulgence. For he is reputed learned----"
He was conscious of repeating the words for his own encouragement, with
a heart less brave than he could have wished. But the information was
pleasantly echoed about, as the ranks of the Servi parted and an old
man, with a face full of benignity, came forward, holding the hand of a
boy with blue eyes and light hair, who walked timidly with him to the
pulpit on the left, where the older man encouraged the shrinking
disputant to mount the stair.
There was a murmur of astonishment as the young face appeared in the
tribunal of that grave assembly.
"Impossible! It is only a child!"
It was, in truth, a strange picture; this child of thirteen, small and
delicate for his years, yet with a face of singular freshness and
gravity, his youthfulness heightened by cassock and cowl--a unique,
simple figure, against the bizarre magnificence of the background, the
central point of interest for that learned and brilliant assembly, as he
stood there above the beautiful kneeling angel who held the Book of the
Law, just under the pulpit.
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