 would not burn you, which of you, my friends, would not enter it as readily as you would walk along the dry bed of the Mugnone?”

As Tito looked round him during this appeal, there was a change in some of his audience very much like the change in an eager dog when he is invited to smell something pungent. Since the question of burning was becoming practical, it was not every one who would rashly commit himself to any general view of the relation between faith and fire. The scene might have been too much for a gravity less under command than Tito’s.

“Then, Messer Segretario,” said the young sculptor, “it seems to me Fra Francesco is the greater hero, for he offers to enter the fire for the truth, though he is sure the fire will burn him.”

“I do not deny it,” said Tito, blandly. “But if it turns out that Fra Francesco is mistaken, he will have been burned for the wrong side, and the Church has never reckoned such victims to be martyrs. We must suspend our judgment until the trial has really taken place.”

“It is true, Messer Segretario,” said the shopkeeper, with subdued impatience. “But will you favour us by interpreting the Latin?”

“Assuredly,” said Tito. “It does but express the conclusions or doctrines which the Frate specially teaches, and which the trial by fire is to prove true or false. They are doubtless familiar to you. First, that Florence—”

“Let us have the Latin bit by bit, and then tell us what it means,” said the shoemaker, who had been a frequent hearer of Fra Girolamo.

“Willingly,” said Tito, smiling. “You will then judge if I give you the right meaning.”

“Yes, yes; that’s fair,” said Goro.

“Ecclesia Dei indiget renovatione; that is, the Church of God needs purifying or regenerating.”

“It is true,” said several voices at once.

“That means, the priests ought to lead better lives; there needs no miracle to prove that. That’s what the Frate has always been saying,” said the shoemaker.

“Flagellabitur,” Tito went on. “That is, it will be scourged. Renovabitur: it will be purified. Florentia quoque post flagellam renovabitur et prosperabitur: Florence also, after the scourging, shall be purified and shall prosper.”

“That means we are to get Pisa again,” said the shopkeeper.

“And get the wool from England as we used to do, I should hope,” said an elderly man, in an old-fashioned
