nds in horror.
"I had no idea that your religious education had been so neglected! My
dear child, marriage is a very solemn thing."

"By Diana! I should think so! But that need not make it such a long
ceremony. A man dies in a moment--_paff!_--the light is out!--you are
dead. It is very solemn. The same thing for marriage. The priest looks
at you, says _Oremus_--_paff!_ You are married, and it cannot be undone!
I know it is very serious, but it is only the affair of a moment."

Don Paolo did not know whether to laugh or to look grave at this
exposition of Gianbattista's views of death and matrimony. He put it
down to the boy's excitement.

"There is another reason, Tista. The law does not allow a girl of
seventeen to be married without her father's consent."

"The law again!" exclaimed Gianbattista in disgust. "I thought the law
protected Lucia from her father. You said so last night, and you
repeated it this morning."

"Certainly, my boy. But the law also protects parents against any
rashness their children may meditate. It would be no marriage if Lucia
had not Marzio's consent."

"I wish there were no laws," grumbled the young man. "How do you come to
know so much about marriage, Don Paolo?"

"It is my profession. Come along; we will talk to Marzio."

"What can we say to him? You do not suppose I will go and beg to be
taken back?"

"You must be forgiving--"

"I believe in forgiveness when the other side begins," said
Gianbattista.

"Perhaps Marzio will forgive too," argued the priest.

"He has nothing to forgive," answered the young man. The reasoning
seemed to him beyond refutation.

"But if he says he has no objection, if he begs you to come back, I
think you might make some advance on your side, Tista. Besides, you were
very rough with him this morning."

"He turned me out like a dog--after all these years," said Gianbattista.
"I will go back and work for him on one condition. He must give me Lucia
at once."

"I am afraid that as a basis of negotiations that plan leaves much to be
desired," replied Don Paolo, in a meditative tone. "Of course, we are
all determined that you shall marry her in the end; but unless
Providence is pleased to change Marzio's state of mind, you may have to
wait until she is of age. He will never consent at present."

"In that case I had better go and take my things away from his house,"
returned the apprentice. "And say good-bye to Lucia--for a day or two,"
he added i