Nathalie chose a fine afternoon to ask Mrs. Winter if she might go to
Roquebrune.
The cure, who was broad-minded, set her heart at rest about the possible
iniquity of her service. He said that different religions were all paths
leading up a steep hill, in the same direction, only some were more
roundabout than others. Nathalie need not after all have taken the
trouble to climb the mule track in the afternoon sun; yet she was not
sorry she had come. Seldom had she looked so beautiful as when her aunt
was giving her orange-syrup with water after her talk with the cure, the
oranges being a present to the house from Achille Gonzales. On the
table in the little kitchen stood a silver photograph frame which
Luciola was going to clean, as the salt air had tarnished its
brightness. In the frame was a photograph of Prince Giovanni Della
Robbia as a boy of eighteen; but so little had eleven years changed
Vanno, that Nathalie recognized the picture at once.
"Ah," she exclaimed, "surely that is the handsome, tall young gentleman
who walks over often to look at the Villa Mirasole, near our laiterie:
the brother of the prince who is coming soon to live there."
"Why, yes, it is he," replied her aunt. "He is a friend of our cure's,
and was once his pupil. He is the Prince Giovanni Della Robbia, a very
noble, good young man."
"I am not sure he is so very good," retorted Nathalie, pleased to know
something which her aunt perhaps did not know, about a person of
importance.
Pages:
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323