"Thou comest of noble blood and long descent, though, as I have told thee often, I know not the exact names of thy parents.

But what art thou shaping that tough sapling of oak into ?" "A sword, dame, to assist the Tribune against the robbers." "Alas! I fear me, like all those who seek power in Italy, he is more likely to enlist robbers than to assail them." "Why, la you there, you live so shut up, that you know and hear nothing, or you would have learned that even that fiercest of all the robbers, Fra Moreale, has at length yielded to the Tribune, and fled from his castle, like a rat from a falling house." "How, how!" cried the dame; "what say you?
Has this plebeian, whom you call the Tribune--has he boldly thrown the gage to that dread warrior?
and has Montreal left the Roman territory ?" "Ay, it is the talk of the town.

But Fra Moreale seems as much a bugbear to you as to e'er a mother in Rome.

Did he ever wrong you, dame ?" "Yes!" exclaimed the old woman, with so abrupt a fierceness, that even that hardy boy was startled.
"I wish I could meet him, then," said he, after a pause, as he flourished his mimic weapon.
"Now Heaven forbid! He is a man ever to be shunned by thee, whether for peace or war.

Say again this good Tribune holds no terms with the Free Lances." "Say it again--why all Rome knows it." "He is pious, too, I have heard; and they do bruit it that he sees visions, and is comforted from above," said the woman, speaking to herself.