“Look, Father Rocco, see if I can’t carry them!” cried La Biondella, cramming her bread into one of the pockets of her little apron, holding her bunch of grapes by the stalk in her mouth, and hoisting the packet of dinner-mats on her head in a moment.  “See, I am strong enough to carry double,” said the child, looking up proudly into the priest’s face.

“Can you trust her to take them home for me?” asked Father Rocco, turning to Nanina.  “I want to speak to you alone, and her absence will give me the opportunity.  Can you trust her out by herself?”

“Yes, Father Rocco, she often goes out alone.”  Nanina gave this answer in low, trembling tones, and looked down confusedly on the ground.

“Go then, my dear,” said Father Rocco, patting the child on the shoulder; “and come back here to your sister, as soon as you have left the mats.”

La Biondella went out directly in great triumph, with Scarammuccia walking by her side, and keeping his muzzle suspiciously close to the pocket in which she had put her bread.  Father Rocco closed the door after them, and then, taking the one chair which the room possessed, motioned to Nanina to sit by him on the stool.

“Do you believe that I am your friend, my child, and that I have always meant well toward you?” he began.

“The best and kindest of friends,” answered Nanina.

“Then you will hear what I have to say patiently, and you will believe that I am speaking for your good, even if my words should distress you?” (Nanina turned away her head.) “Now, tell me; should I be wrong, to begin with, if I said that my brother’s pupil, the young nobleman whom we call ‘Signor Fabio,’ had been here to see you to-day?” (Nanina started up affrightedly from her stool.) “Sit down again, my child; I am not going to blame you.  I am only going to tell you what you must do for the future.”

He took her hand; it was cold, and it trembled violently in his.

“I will not ask what he has been saying to you,” continued the priest; “for it might distress you to answer, and I have, moreover, had means of knowing that your youth and beauty have made a strong impression on him.  I will pass over, then, all reference to the words he may have been speaking to you; and I will come at once to what I have now to say, in my turn.  Nanina, my child, arm yourself with all your courage, and promise me, before we part to-night, that you will see Signor Fabio no more.”

Nanina turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes on him, with an expression of terrified incredulity.  “No more?”

“You are very young and very innocent,” said Father Rocco; “but surely you must have thought before now of the difference between Signor Fabio and you.  Surely you must have often remembered that you are low down among the ranks of the poor, and that he is high up among the rich and the nobly born?”

Nanina’s hands dropped on the priest’s knees.  She bent her head down on them, and began to weep bitterly.