not much like the priest, who had now and then a way of looking at him which he did not fancy. He always felt in his company as if he were in the presence of a sharp detective officer prepared to make use against him of any word that might fall from his lips should a time ever come when the priest might find it desirable to do so. However, in obedience to his unfailing maxim and practice to hold the best candle he could lay his hands on to every devil or devil’s emissary whom he might be doomed to meet in his way through life, he spoke as above in opening his business with the farmer.
“Everybody knows,” resumed the little man, “the admirable and truly Christian manner in which you have received, educated, and supported your orphan relative, the Signorina Giulia. All Fano has rung with your praises on this score, my valued friend, and you have well deserved them!”
Don Evandro here looked at the farmer with a fixed and peculiar look that caused the hard-featured old man to drop his eyes before it. The priest had no special reason for thus reminding his parishioner of any circumstances that might be in both their hearts at that moment. But it was part of his system, so long practised as to have become quite habitual to him, never to lose any opportunity of acquiring or consolidating power over others, be they who they might, or let the means be what they might. That was all the object of the look—and the object was gained. The old man’s eyes fell, and his heart recognised his master.
“But,” resumed the attorney, “for a girl such as the Signorina Giulia, who has her bread to earn, and her way to make in the world, it would be a great thing to obtain some knowledge of many things which she would perhaps be more likely to pick up in the city than in your own undoubtedly more agreeable home. I put it to you, your reverence, since we are happy enough to have the benefit of your presence, whether it does not strike you in that light?”
“Most unquestionably!” replied the priest. “There can be no doubt about the matter. It would be extremely advantageous to la Giulia to sojourn for awhile in the city, if we only knew any means of placing her there with propriety. But that is the difficulty.”
“Just so! that was the difficulty! Now that difficulty I think I have been fortunate enough to find the means of removing!”
“Indeed, Signor Sandro!” said Vanni, beginning to see that the removal in question might be desirable for more reasons than that assigned by the cautious little attorney. “Truly we shall have reason to be very much obliged to you. What is it you are good enough to think of proposing for la Giulia, poverina?”
“Why, this it is,” replied Signor Sandro, addressing himself to the farmer, but looking at Don Evandro, and evidently considering him as the more important personage to be consulted; “a friend and very good client of mine, an elderly widow lady, whose—a—companion has lately left her, wants to meet with—what shall I say? not exactly a servant, and perhaps not altogether a companion; somebody, in short, who for a moderate recompense—moderate, for my friend is not rich—would live with her, and take care of her and her house, and be taught all of housekeeping that my friend could teach—not a small matter, allow me to say, for la Signora Clementina Dossi is a capital housekeeper, I can tell you—and—do what there is to be done in the house.”
“Be a servant-of-all-work, in short!” said Farmer Vanni.
“Che! che! che! che!” Servant-of-all-work!” cried the attorney, who had been particularly labouring to prevent his proposition from assuming any such appearance; for he well knew and understood the “contadino’s” pride, which would be likely to rise in arms against such a proposal. It was not, as the attorney knew perfectly well, any tenderness on the part of the old farmer for his adopted child that made the notion of accepting a place as maid-of-all-work distasteful to him, but that he shrank from having it said that an inmate of Bella Luce, one of his family and bearing his name, had been obliged to accept such a position.
“Nothing like a servant-of-all-work! scarcely a servant at all, I tell you.”
“I should not like Giulia to take a place of maid-of all-work. None of the Vannis have ever been in service!” said the old farmer, rather grimly.
“Of course not, my dear friend! Can you imagine such a thing! I should not like to stand in the shoes of the man who should come up to Bella Luce to propose to the head of the Vanni family to send one of its members to menial service. But this is quite a different matter. We are upon quite other ground. I appeal to his reverence here, whose opinion we should both of us bow to implicitly, whether there is any similitude between the two cases.”
And Signor Sandro ventured a speaking look at the priest as he spoke.
“Certainly it does seem to me,” said the priest, “since you ask my opinion, that this is a proposition which any man might freely accept without in any degree compromising the credit of his family. Judging, my dear Signor Vanni, from the details Signor Sandro has been good enough to lay before us, I should say that there was nothing in common between the position he has in view for the Signorina Giulia and that of a menial servant.”
“Clearly not! I was sure his reverence’s admirable judgment would see the thing in its true light at once. You see, my dear friend, there is no question of any wages as such;—merely a gratuitous douceur,—‘gratitudinis causa,’ I may say,—our friend Don Evandro will appreciate the appropriateness of the expression;—for service willingly rendered on the one hand, and thankfully received, rather than exacted, on the other. You will perceive, my esteemed Signor Vanni, all the essential differences of the position from that of one holding a menial capacity.”
The farmer would have been very much puzzled to explain in what the difference consisted, that Signor Sandro had been setting forth so eloquently. But he understood that his priest approved the measure. So he said:—
