I have told it to you, because he is my own dear boy, as I have often said in these pages; and because people must not think that he did wrong to carry Hedwig von Lira away from her father, nor that Hedwig was so very unfilial and heartless.

I know that they were both right, and the day will come when old Lira will acknowledge it.

He is a hard old man, but he must have some affection for her; and if not, he will surely have the vanity to own so famous an artist as Nino for his son-in-law.
I do not know how it was managed, for Hedwig was certainly a heretic when she left her father, though she was an angel, as Nino said.

But before they left Rome for Vienna there was a little wedding, early in the morning, in our parish church, for I was there; and De Pretis, who was really responsible for the whole thing, got some of his best singers from St.Peter and St.John on the Lateran to come and sing a mass over the two.

I think that our good Mother Church found room for the dear child very quickly, and that is how it happened.
They are happy and glad together, those two hearts that never knew love save for each other, and they will be happy always.