The lady threw back her mantilla and showed the children a little Christ-image in a jewelled dress, and with a gold crown on his head and gold shoes on his feet. “Here he is,” she said. “I have brought him with me to show you.”
The children were in raptures. First they clasped their hands at the sight of the image’s grave face, then they began to throw kisses to it.
“He is beautiful, is he not?” said the lady.
“Let us have him! Let us have him!” cried the children.
But now a big, rough workman, a dark man with a bushy, black beard, pushed forward. He wished to snatch away the image. The old lady had barely time to thrust it behind her back.
“Give it here, Donna Elisa, give it here!” said the man.
Poor Donna Elisa cast one glance at Donna Micaela, who had sat silent and displeased the whole time by her side. Donna Micaela had been persuaded with difficulty to go to Corvaja and show the image to the people there. “The image helps us when it wills,” she said. “We shall not force miracles.”
But Donna Elisa had been determined to go, and she had said that the image was only waiting to be taken to the faithless wretches in Corvaja. After everything that he had done, they might have enough faith in him to believe that he could win them over also.
Now she, Donna Elisa, stood there with the man over her, and she did not know how she could prevent him from snatching the image away.