Although she had resented the power of Fra Gianmaria over Pierino, she
was proud of the confidence of the learned friar in her child; already
she began to teach herself to accept pride in the place of the lowlier,
happier, daily love she must learn to do without. Her face grew colder
and more composed; Don Ambrogio gave her a nod of approval.
"It _is_ Pierino!" the bare-legged Beppo proclaimed, pushing his way
between dignitaries and elegant nobles and taking a position, in
wide-eyed astonishment, in front of the pulpit, where he could watch
every movement of his quondam school-fellow, whose words carried no
meaning to his unlearned ears. But his heart throbbed with sudden
loyalty in seeing his comrade the centre of such a festa; Beppo would
stay and help him to get fair play, if he should need it, since it was
well known that Pierino could not fight, for all his Latin!
But the little fellow in robe and cowl had neither eyes nor thoughts for
his vast audience when he once gathered courage to begin--no memory for
the pride of his teachers, no perception of his mother's yearning;
shrinking and timid as he was, the first voicing of his own thought, in
his childish treble voice, put him in presence of a problem and banished
all other consciousness.
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