Furtively, too, the friars watched Fra Paolo; for the adoration of the
gentle Fra Francesco for this idol of their order, from the day when
they had entered the convent as boys together, had formed a cloister
idyl--none the less that the response of the graver friar was not
equally demonstrative, though it was felt to be true; for it was a
marvel that two such opposite natures should hold so closely together
and that Fra Francesco, for all his gentleness, should apparently retain
opinions uninfluenced by the power and learning which all others
recognized.
Yet, from those early days, Fra Francesco had abated nothing of his
scrupulous and loving conservatism; never had he questioned a rule, nor
chosen the least, instead of the most, permitted in an act of humility;
and after his Church, the Madonna, and his patron saint, he expended the
devotion of his nature upon his friend with a just estimate of his power
and daring which filled his soul with anxious happiness. Often, in
those earlier days, when the echoes of Fra Paolo's triumphs had
penetrated to the refectory of the Servi, Fra Francesco had felt a
strange premonition which had kept him long on his knees before the
altar in the chapel.
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