noon
It was windy , and as she was toiling up the steep hill to Bellosguardo her umbrella blew inside out . She threw it down by the side of the road and went on , rather glad to be rid of it and to feel the rain on her face . She had two hands now to hold her skirt and that was better . Soon after noon she knocked at the door of a gardener 's cottage and asked for something to eat ; she was given a yellow lump of _ polenta _ and a handful of roast chestnuts and she sat down on a low wall by the roadside to devour them . She did not think much about anything now , she could not even feel that she cared what happened to her , but she adhered to the resolution she had made to keep out of the way until Tor di Rocca had left Florence . She could not sit long . It was cold and she was poorly clad , so poorly that the woman in the cottage had believed her to be a beggar .