Page:The Lady Poverty - a XIII. century allegory (IA ladypovertyxiiic00giovrich).pdf/207

 love her with chivalric devotion, is too well known to need repetition. The final act in the drama came when one day, riding in the plain before Assisi, he was met by a leper who besought an alms, and, filled with disgust, he at first thought to pass on, but, moved by a nobler impulse, cast himself from his horse, and not only gave the alms, but folded the leper to his breast and embraced him. From that moment he himself has told us that "what had seemed bitter was changed into sweet