"He is the _parroco_ of Montefiano," replied Silvio, "and he used to be at the Vatican some years ago. I do not know the story--he would not tell it me; but Babbo knows it well, and we will ask him--the history of his earlier life--that he did tell me. Imagine, Giacinta, he was engaged to Bianca Acorari's mother. They forced her to marry the Principe di Montefiano, and then he became a priest. But he never ceased to love her, although he did become a priest; that I know."
"Now he has come to ask Babbo for my character," answered Silvio, smiling. "If he gets a good one, he will help me to marry Bianca. Do you know, Giacinta, that they want to marry her to a brother of the princess--a Baron d'Antin? Did you ever hear of anything so outrageous? As Don Agostino--he will not be called _monsignore_--says, such a thing must be prevented, and, of course, I am the proper person to prevent it."
"You must admit that it is strange, Giacinta, that Don Agostino should have been engaged to Bianca's mother--and her name was Bianca also--just as I am engaged to the daughter, and that he should be at Montefiano. It seems like a destiny. As for this Baron d'Antin--"
"I have seen him several times," observed Giacinta. "He always stares very hard. I asked the porter who he was. He is not so very old, Silvio; he looks younger than the princess."
"You had better marry him," returned Silvio; "then you will become my step-aunt by marriage as well as being my sister."
Giacinta laughed. "Don't talk nonsense," she said; "but tell me what you and Monsignor Lelli propose to do. I never expected that you would confide your love affairs to a priest. First of all a French governess, and now a _monsignore_. You are certainly an original person, Silvio."
"Ah, but Don Agostino is not like most priests--"
"Because he has been in love himself?" interrupted Giacinta, laughing.
"Oh, not at all! There would be nothing unusual in that," answered Silvio, dryly. "Priests are no different from other people, I suppose, although they may profess to be so. No; Don Agostino is not like the majority of his brethren, because he has the honesty to be a man first and a priest afterwards. He does not forget the priest, but one hears and feels the man all the time he is talking to one.