Meanwhile have faith and hope, and wait." Once before, when, to escape the schemes of her brother who would have wed her to the Lord Giovanni, she had appealed to me, the counsel I had given her had been much the same as that which I gave her now.

At the irony of it I could have laughed had any other been in question but Madonna Paola--this tender White Flower of the Quince that was like to be rudely wilted by the ruthless hands of scheming men..