"But you will not die," said Nerina anxiously. "Why should you think of dying, madonna? You are certainly old, but you are not so very, very old."
Clelia smiled.
"You do not flatter, child. So much the better. Run away and drive in those fowls. They are making havoc in the beanfield."
She could not feel otherwise than tenderly towards this young creature, always so obedient, so tractable, so contented, so grateful; but she would willingly have placed her elsewhere could she have done so with a clear conscience.
"My son will never do ill by any creature under his roof," she thought. "But still youth is youth; and the girl grows."
"We must dower her and mate her; eh, your reverence?" she said to Don Silverio when he passed by later in that day.
"Willingly," he answered. "But to whom? To the owls or the cats at Ruscino?"
In himself he thought, "She is as straight and as slight as a chestnut wand, but she is as strong. When you shall try to bend her where she shall not want to go you will not succeed."
For he knew the character of Nerina in the confessional better than Clelia Alba judged of it in her house.
"It was not wise to bring her here," he added aloud. "But having committed that error it would be unfair to charge the child with the painful payment of it. You are a just woman, my good friend; you must see that."