“Pray pardon me, my lady, but I was thinking of our native country.”
“Our native country!” echoed the countess.
“Yes; madame la comtesse may remember, while at Palermo, that she had left a foster sister at the village of which her father was the signor; and when she wrote for me to come to her, I was about to be married to a young man belonging to Bauso.”
“Why did you not tell me of that? The prince, at my recommendation, would have taken him into his service.”
“Oh, he would not become a servant,” said Teresa; “he was too proud for that.”
“Indeed!” said the countess.
“Yes; he had before then refused the situation of shepherd to the Prince of Goto.”
“He was a gentleman, then, this young man?”
“No, madame la comtesse; he was but a simple mountaineer,” said Teresa, in a melancholy tone.
“What was his name?”