using the rough word _bugia_.

He looked insulted: "I have not told a bugia."

With a philosophical desire for information I repeated the question,
using the milder word _mensogna_. He drew himself up, looked virtuous
and declared that he had not told a mensogna.

"Why, then," I asked, "have you said one thing for another?"

It was just what he wanted. He immediately began a profuse verbal
explanation of why one thing was sometimes better to say than another,
why one was truer than another, and so mixed up his _una cosa_ and _un'
altra cosa_ as to put me quite _hors de combat_, and send me into the
house with the impression that I ought to be ashamed of myself for
having told somebody a lie. It brought to my mind one of my father's
favorite quotations: "Some things can be done as well as some other
things."

I was shown to my room, which was rough, as all rooms in Asisi are, but
large and high. As Sor Filomena said, it had _un' aria signorile_ in
spite of the coarse brick floor and the ugly doors and lumpy walls.
Some large dauby old paintings gave a color to the dimness, there were
a fine old oak secretary black with age, a real bishop's carved stool
with a red cushion laid on it, and a long window opening on to a view
of the wide plain with its circling mountains and its many cities and
_paesetti_--Perugia shining white from the neighboring hill; Spello and
Spoleto standing out in bold profile in the opposite direction;
Montefalco lying like a gray pile of rocks on a southern hilltop; the
village and church of Santa Maria degli Angeli nestled like a flock of