Beppo. Not with soap?
Nurse (menacingly). With soap and with pumice-stone. Come!
Bishop. Leave me thy birds’-nest. And, Nurse, let him at the same time be neatly dressed. Perhaps in some old suit of Monseigneur’s.
Beppo (annoyed). Old suit?
Bishop. They are of the same age and height. And to play with Monseigneur in those rags!—(As Beppo still lingers.) Go, my child.
Nurse. Come! I will give thee the best washing!—
Beppo (with recovered spirits). I am not afraid. Thou art only an old woman!
Nurse. Ah! Sayest thou?
Beppo (whispers, shaking a finger in her face). ’Ssh, old woman! ’Ssh! (So they leave the chamber, the Nurse angrily pushing him out in front of her.)
Bishop (tenderly, over Beppo’s birds’-nest). Little, hungry, weak birds! There is something infinitely pathetic, Doctor, in these young things of Nature.