It seemed
to her that the immortal monk still dominated Florence, and when
she saw his old worn crucifix in his cell at San Marco, something
awoke in her spirit,--a sense of religious values. Religion, then,
was not a mere fixed convention, subscribed to as a sort of proof of
conservatism and respectability; religion was really a fixed
reality, an eternal power. She read everything that she could lay
her hands on covering the history of Fra Girolamo. Then she bought a
picture of his red Indian-like visage, and hung it up in her room.
The titanic reformer remained, a shadowy but very deep power, in the
background of her consciousness, and it was this long-dead preacher
who taught her to pray. He won her profoundest reverence and faith,
because he had been true, he had sealed his faith with his life; she
felt that she could trust him. His honesty appealed to her own.
It was such curious phases as this of the girl's unfolding
character, that made her a never-failing source of interest to
Marcia Vandervelde.
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