and offer his knee as a step for the canonesses. The charitable ladies
cried out on him for this imprudence, and his pallor still giving
evidence of distress, he was bidden to wait on them after supper with
his story. He presented himself promptly in the parlour, and being
questioned as to his condition at once rashly proclaimed his former
connection with the ducal theatre of Pianura. No avowal could have been
more disastrous to his cause. The canonesses crossed themselves with
horror, and the abate, seeing his mistake, hastened to repair it by
exclaiming--"What, ladies, would you punish me for following a vocation
to which my frivolous parents condemned me when I was too young to
resist their purpose? And have not my subsequent sufferings, my penances
and pilgrimages, and the state to which they have reduced me,
sufficiently effaced the record of an involuntary error?"

Seeing the effect of this appeal the abate made haste to follow up his
advantage. "Ah, illustrious ladies," he cried, "am I not a living
example of the fate of those who leave all to follow righteousness? For
while I remained on the stage, among the most dissolute surroundings,
fortune showered me with every benefit she heaps on her favourites. I
had my seat at every table in Pianura; the Duke's chair to carry me to
the theatre; and more money than I could devise how to spend; while now
that I have resigned my calling to embrace the religious life, you see
me reduced to begging a crust from the very mendicants I formerly
nourished. For," said he, moved to tears by his own recital, "my
superfluity was always spent in buying the prayers of the unfortunate,
and to judge how I was esteemed by those acquainted with my private
behaviour you need only learn that, on my renouncing the stage, 'twas
the Bishop of Pianura who himself accorded me the tonsure."

This discourse, which Odo admired for its adroitness, visibly excited