A report circulated that an agreement was on the point of being arrived at, that the King consented to recognise the Pope's absolute sovereignty over the Leonine City,* and a narrow band of territory extending to the sea.

And if such were the case would not the marriage of Benedetta and Prada become, so to say, a symbol of union, of national reconciliation?
That lovely girl, the pure lily of the black world, was she not the acquiescent sacrifice, the pledge granted to the whites?
* The Vatican suburb of Rome, called the _Civitas Leonina_, because Leo IV, to protect it from the Saracens and Arabs, enclosed it with walls in the ninth century .-- Trans.
For a fortnight nothing else was talked of; people discussed the question, allowed their emotion rein, indulged in all sorts of hopes.

The girl, for her part, did not enter into the political reasons, but simply listened to her heart, which she could not bestow since it was hers no more.

From morn till night, however, she had to encounter her mother's prayers entreating her not to refuse the fortune, the life which offered.
And she was particularly exercised by the counsels of her confessor, good Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic zeal now burst forth.

He weighed upon her with all his faith in the Christian destinies of Italy, and returned heartfelt thanks to Providence for having chosen one of his penitents as the instrument for hastening the reconciliation which would work God's triumph throughout the world.