"I regret that my son the Marquis should be away on our property at Romagna," she said, as I rose to go, "but I will introduce you to my second son, Don Ottavio, who will soon become a Monsignor. I hope you will like him, and that you will make friends with each other as you ought to...."
She broke off precipitately—
"For you are nearly the same age, and he is a nice steady boy like yourself."
She sent immediately for Don Ottavio, and I was presented to a tall, pale young man, whose downcast, melancholy eyes seemed already conscious of his hypocrisy.
Without giving him time to speak, the Marquise offered me in his name the most ready services. He assented by bowing low at all his mother's suggestions, and it was arranged that he should take me to see the sights of the town on the following day and bring me back to dinner en famille at the Aldobrandi palace.
I had hardly gone twenty steps down the road when an imperious voice exclaimed behind me—
"Where are you going alone at this hour, Don Ottavio?"
I turned round and saw a fat priest, who looked me up and down from head to foot with his eyes wide open.
"I am not Don Ottavio," I said.
The priest bowed down to the ground, profuse in apologies, and a moment after I saw him go into the Aldobrandi palace. I continued on my way, not much flattered at being taken for a budding Monsignor.