“You are setting out,” said he, “on a way far different from that in which it has been my care to guide you; yet the high road and the mountain path may, by diverse windings, lead to the same point; and whatever walk a man chooses, it will surely carry him to the end that God has appointed.  If you are called to serve Him in the world, the journey on which you are now starting may lead you to the throne of Pianura; but even so,” he went on, “there is this I would have you remember:  that should this dignity come to you it may come as a calamity rather than a joy; for when God confers earthly honours on a child of His predilection, He sometimes deigns to render them as innocuous as misfortune; and my chief prayer for you is that you should be raised to this eminence, it may be at a moment when such advancement seems to thrust you in the dust.”

The words burned themselves into Odo’s heart like some mystic writing on the walls of memory, long afterward to start into fiery meaning.  At the time he felt only that the priest spoke with a power and dignity no human authority could give; and for a moment all the stored influences of his faith reached out to him from the dimly-gleaming altar.

The next sun rose on a new world.  He was to set out at daylight, and dawn found him at the casement, footing it in thought down the road as yet undistinguishable in a dying glimmer of stars.  Bruno was to attend him to Turin; but one of the women presently brought word that the old huntsman’s rheumatism had caught him in the knee, and that the Marquess, resolved not to delay his grandson’s departure, had chosen Cantapresto as the boy’s companion.  The courtyard, when Odo descended, fairly bubbled with the voluble joy of the fat soprano, who was giving directions to the servants, receiving commissions and instructions from the aunts, assuring everybody of his undying devotion to the heir-presumptive of Pianura, and citing impressive instances of the responsibilities with which the great of the earth had formerly entrusted him.

As a companion for Odo the abate was clearly not to Don Gervaso’s taste; but he stood silent, turning the comment of a cool eye on the soprano’s protestations, and saying only, as Cantapresto swept the company into the circle of an obsequious farewell:—­“Remember, signor abate, it is to your cloth this business is entrusted.”  The abate’s answer was a rush of purple to the forehead; but Don Gervaso imperturbably added, “And you lie but one night on the road.”

Meanwhile the old Marquess, visibly moved, was charging Odo to respect his elders and superiors, while in the same breath warning him not to take up with the Frenchified notions of the court, but to remember that for a lad of his condition the chief virtues were a tight seat in the saddle, a quick hand on the sword and a slow tongue in counsel.  “Mind your own business,” he concluded, “and see that others mind theirs.”

The Marchioness thereupon, with many tears, hung a scapular about Odo’s neck, bidding him shun the theatre and be regular at confession; one of the canonesses reminded him not to omit a visit to the chapel of the Holy Winding-sheet, while the other begged him to burn a candle for her at the Consolata; and the servants pressed forward to embrace and bless their little master.