turn and said:

"Well spoken, Leone Rancati! The case demands we send to the condemned
man Catherine, the fuller's daughter."

The advice was approved by all the Signory, who resolved to invite
Catherine to visit Niccola Tuldo in his prison.

In those days Catherine, daughter of Giacomo the fuller, filled all the
city of Sienna with the perfume of her virtues. She dwelt in a little
cell in her father's house and wore the habit of the Sisters of
Penitence. She carried girt about her under her gown of white linen an
iron chain, and scourged herself an hour long every day. Then, showing
her arms covered with wounds, she would cry, "Behold my pretty red
roses!" She cultivated in her chamber lilies and violets, wherewith she
wove garlands for the altars of the Virgin and the Saints. And all the
while she would be singing hymns in the vulgar tongue to the praise of
Jesus and Mary His Mother. In those mournful times, when the city of
Sienna was a hostel of sorrow, and a house of joy to boot, Catherine was
ever visiting the unhappy prisoners, and telling the prostitutes: "My
sisters, how fain would I hide you in the loving wounds of the Saviour!"
A maiden so pure, fired with so sweet charity, could nowhere have budded
and blossomed but at Sienna, which under all its defilements and amid
all its crimes, was still the City of the Blessed Virgin.

Apprised by the Magistrates, Catherine betook herself to the public gaol
on the morning of the day Ser Niccola Tuldo was to die. She found him
stretched on the stone floor of the dungeon, bellowing blasphemies.
Raising the white veil the blessed St. Dominic himself had come down
from Paradise to lay upon her brow, she showed the prisoner a