heir eyebrows, and the more primitive among them shrugged
their shoulders a little, and smiled. If Providence really insisted upon
making people so perfect, what was to be done? It was distressing, but
there was nothing to be said; they must just lead their lives, and the
gossips must bear it. No doubt Corbario had married for money, since he
had nothing in particular and his wife had millions, but if ever a man
had married for money and then behaved like an angel, that man was Folco
Corbario and no other. He was everything to his wife, and all things to
his stepson--husband, father, man of business, tutor, companion, and
nurse; for when either his wife or Marcello was ill, he rarely left the
sick-room, and no one could smooth a pillow as he could, or hold a glass
so coaxingly to the feverish lips, or read aloud so untiringly in such a
gentle and soothing voice.

No ascendency of one human being over another is more complete than that
of a full-grown man over a boy of sixteen, who venerates his elder as an
ideal. To find a model, to believe it perfection, and to copy it
energetically, is either a great piece of good fortune, or a misfortune
even greater; in whatever follows in life, there is the same difference
between such development and the normally slow growth of a boy's mind as
that which lies between enthusiasm and indifference. It is true that
where there has been no enthusiastic belief there can be no despairing
disillusionment when the light goes out; but it is truer still that hope
and happiness are the children of faith by the ideal.

A boy's admiration for his hero is not always well founded; sometimes it
is little short of ridiculous, and it is by no means always harmless.
But no one found fault with Marcello for admiring his stepfather, and
the attachment was a source of constant satisfaction to his mother. In
her opinion Corbario was the handsomest, bravest, cleverest, and best of
men, and after watching him for some time even the disappointed gossips
were obliged to admit, though without superlatives, that he was a
good-looking fellow, a good sportsman, sufficiently well gifted, and of
excellent behaviour. There was the more merit in the admission, they
maintained, because they had been inclined to doubt the man, and had
accused him of marrying out of pure love of money. A keen judge of men
might have thought that his handsome features were almost too still and
too much like a mask, that his manner was s