se might
be the result. It was not a question of abolishing religious sentiment;
this Luisa, out of respect for Franco, if for no other reason, would
never have sought to do, but it was imperative that Maria, on reaching
womanhood, should be able to find the pivot of her own existence in her
own sure and vigorous moral sense, a moral sense not founded upon
beliefs which, after all, were simply hypotheses and opinions, and
which, sooner or later, might fail her. The preservation of faith in
Justice and in Truth, setting aside all other faith, all hope, all fear,
seemed to her the most sublime condition of the human conscience. She
believed that because she went to Mass, and twice a year to the
sacraments, she had renounced such perfection for herself, and she
intended to renounce it for Maria also, but as one who, finding himself
hampered by wife and children, must renounce Christian perfection, but
who does so unwillingly, and in as slight a degree as possible.

Fate might bestow riches upon Maria. Therefore they must carefully
provide against her acceptance of a life of frivolity, compensated for
by the giving of alms, the Mass in the morning, and the rosary at night.
On several occasions Luisa had attempted to sound Franco upon the
question of giving Maria's education a moral direction quite apart from
the religious direction, but such attempts had never been accompanied by
satisfactory results. Franco could understand an unbelief in religion,
but it was quite incomprehensible to him that there were those who found
religion insufficient as a rule of life. He had never for a moment
believed that all should aspire to saintliness, or that those who love
_tarocchi_, primero, hunting, fishing, nice little dinners and a bottle
of fine wine, are not good Christians. And this moral direction in
education as divided from the religious direction seemed to him a mere
notion, because, to his thinking, all honest men who did not believe,
were honest either by nature or from habit, and not from any moral or
philosophical reasoning. So it was not possible for Luisa to come to an
understanding with her husband on this delicate point. She must act
alone and very cautiously, in order neither to offend nor to grieve him.
When Franco pointed out to the child the stars and the moon, the flowers
and the butterflies, as admirable works of God, using poetically
religious language fit for a child of twelve, Luisa held her peace; but
if, on th