him. What
more do you want? You ought to be thankful he has taken a fancy to her."
But the advice that decided her was that of her famous cousin, the
Marquis of Tarfe, a man to whom she looked upon as the most
distinguished citizen in the country, without doubt because of his
office as permanent head of the Foreign Service, for every two years he
was made Minister of Foreign Affairs.

"It looks very good to me," said the nobleman, hastily, for they were
waiting for him in the Senate. "It is a modern marriage and we must keep
up with the times. I am a conservative, but liberal, very liberal and
very modern. I will protect the children. I like the marriage. Art
joining its prestige with a historic family! The popular blood that
rises through its merits and is mingled with that of the ancient
nobility!"

And the Marquis of Tarfe, whose marquisate did not go back half a
century, with these rhetorical figures of an orator in the Senate and
his promises of protection, convinced the haughty widow. She was the one
who spoke to Renovales, to relieve him of an explanation that would be
trying because of the timidity he felt in this society that was not his
own.

"I know all about it, Mariano, my dear, and you have my consent."

But she did not like long engagements. When did he intend to get
married? Renovales was more eager for it than the mother. Josephina was
different from other women who hardly aroused his desire. His chastity,
which had been like that of a rough laborer, developed into a feverish
desire to make that charming doll his own as soon as possible. Besides,
his pride was flattered by this union. His fiancee was poor; her only
dowry was a few ragged clothes, but she belonged to a noble family,
ministers, generals--all of noble descent. They could weigh by the ton
the coronets and coats-of-arms of those countless relatives who did not
pay much attention to Josephina and her mother, but who would soon be
his family. What would Senor Anton think, hammering iron in the suburbs
of his town? What would his comrades in Rome say, whose lot consisted in
living with the _ciociari_ who served as their models, and marrying them
afterward out of fear for the stiletto of the venerable Calabrian who
insisted on providing a legitimate father for his grandsons!

The papers had much to say about the wedding, repeating with slight
variations the very phrases of the Marquis of Tarfe, "Art uniting with
nobility." Renovales wanted