"Listen," she said, "I am going to tell you what happened to me to-day. You know that we often have in our yard some of those begging brothers, who annoy everybody, even the poor people, and whom you cannot get rid of without giving them something. Well, one of them came just after Michel and my father had left the house, and I never saw a monk so persistent, and so bold, and so inquisitive. Just fancy that, when he saw me working at my window, he took up his station just below it, and there he stood, staring at me with a gaze that embarrassed me, although I tried not to meet his eyes. I tossed him some bread in order to get rid of him. He didn't condescend to pick it up. 'Young woman,' he said, 'that is not the way people give alms to a brother of my order. They take the trouble to go downstairs to him and to commend themselves to his prayers, instead of tossing him a crust as if he were a dog. You are not a pious maid, and your parents have brought you up badly. I am sure that you are not a native?' "I made the mistake of answering him. He had put me in a bad humor with his sermon, and he was so ugly, so dirty, so insolent, that I could not help exhibiting my disgust. It seemed to me that I recognized him as a man I had seen in the morning at the Palmarosa palace. My brother was disturbed by his face at that time, and questioned my uncle Fra Angelo about him. He sent us away in haste, promising to find out who he was, for he did not recognize him as a Capuchin, and my father said that he resembled a certain Abbé Ninfo, who bears us a grudge, apparently. However, either it was not the same man, or else he had changed his disguise; for he wore the costume of a bare-footed Carmelite when he came here; and, instead of a thick, curly black beard, he had a red beard, as short and stiff as a wild boar's hair. He was even more horrible in that dress, and if it was not the same man, why, I can safely say that I have seen to-day the two most repulsive monks in Valdemona." "And you were imprudent enough to talk with him?" said Magnani. "Talk is not the word; I requested him to carry his preaching somewhere else, saying that I had no time to go down to him or to listen to his reprimands; that, if he did not consider my alms worthy of his acceptance, he could give it to the first poor person he met, and that, if he was born proud, he had made a great mistake in becoming a mendicant." "Doubtless he was irritated by your replies?" "No, for if I had seen that he was mortified or angry, charity or prudence would have kept me from saying so much. But, instead of continuing to scold me, he began to smile; a ghastly sort of smile, to be sure, but not resentful. "'You are an amusing child,' he said, 'and I forgive your lack of propriety because of your wit and your black eyes.'