“Nello!” said Tito, hastily, but immediately added, in a tone of disappointment, “Ah, he has turned round. It was that tall, thin friar who is going up the steps. I wanted you to tell me if you knew aught of him?”
“One of the Frati Predicatori,” said Nello, carelessly; “you don’t expect me to know the private history of the crows.”
“I seem to remember something about his face,” said Tito. “It is an uncommon face.”
“What? you thought it might be our Fra Girolamo? Too tall; and he never shows himself in that chance way.”
“Besides, that loud-barking ‘hound of the Lord’ is not in Florence just now,” said Francesco Cei, the popular poet; “he has taken Piero de’ Medici’s hint, to carry his railing prophecies on a journey for a while.”
“The Frate neither rails nor prophesies against any man,” said a middle-aged personage seated at the other corner of the window; “he only prophesies against vice. If you think that an attack on your poems, Francesco, it is not the Frate’s fault.”
“Ah, he’s gone into the Duomo now,” said Tito, who had watched the figure eagerly. “No, I was not under that mistake, Nello. Your Fra Girolamo has a high nose and a large underlip. I saw him once—he is not handsome; but this man …”
“Truce to your descriptions!” said Cennini. “Hark! see! Here come the horsemen and the banners. That standard,” he continued, laying his