"Will you come with me to the monastery? I think we can find you a home. You have nowhere to go, poor child, and you will be weary and hungry before long. Will you come?"
"There is nothing in the world that I should like so well!" cried the boy, ardently.
"Come then," said the Padre, with one of his subtle smiles. "We will go together."
He held out his hand, in which Dino gladly laid his hot and trembling fingers. Then the monk and the boy set out on the three miles walk which lay between them and the monastery.
On their arrival, Padre Cristoforo left the boy in the cool cloisters whilst he sought the Prior—a dignitary whose permission would be needed before Dino would be allowed to stay. There was a school in connection with the monastery, but it was devoted chiefly to the training of young priests, and it was not probable that a peasant like Dino Vasari would be admitted to the ranks of these budding ecclesiastics. The Prior thought that old Assunta's grandchild would make a good helper for Giacomo, the dresser of the vines.
"Does that not satisfy you?" said Padre Cristoforo, in a rather peculiar tone, when he had carried this proposal to Dino, and seen the boy's face suddenly fall, and his eyes fill with tears.
"The Reverend Fathers are very good," said Dino, in a somewhat embarrassed fashion, "and I will do all that I can to serve them, and, if I could also learn to read and write—and listen to the music in the chapel sometimes—I would work for them all the days of my life."
Padre Cristoforo smiled.
"You shall have your wish, my child," he said, kindly. "You shall go to the school—not to the vine-dressers. You shall be our son now."
But Dino looked up at him timidly.