“Reverend sir,” I said, “let me advise you to take your niece again to Venice. I undertake to defray all expenses, and to find an honest woman with whom your Christine will be as safe as with her own mother. I want to know her well in order to make her my wife, and if she comes to Venice our marriage is certain.”
“Sir, I will bring my niece myself to Venice as soon as you inform me that you have found a worthy woman with whom I can leave her in safety.”
While we were talking I kept looking at Christine, and I could see her smile with contentment.
“My dear Christine,” I said, “within a week I shall have arranged the affair. In the meantime, I will write to you. I hope that you have no objection to correspond with me.”
“My uncle will write for me, for I have never been taught writing.”
“What, my dear child! you wish to become the wife of a Venetian, and you cannot write.”
“Is it then necessary to know how to write in order to become a wife? I can read well.”
“That is not enough, and although a girl can be a wife and a mother without knowing how to trace one letter, it is generally admitted that a young girl ought to be able to write. I wonder you never learned.”
“There is no wonder in that, for not one girl in our village can do it. Ask my uncle.”
“It is perfectly true, but there is not one who thinks of getting married in Venice, and as you wish for a Venetian husband you must learn.”