“Perhaps--who knows?--that is why no good has come of me, nor can come. My uncle’s piety and repute have always been my efficient help. He is the principal priest of the church to which I am attached, and he has had infinite patience with me. My ambition and my attempted inventions are a scandal to him, for he is a priest of those like the Holy Father, who believe that all the wickedness of the modern world has come from the devices of science; my indifference to the things of religion is a terror and a sorrow to him which he combats with prayers and penances. He starves himself and goes cold and faint that God may have mercy and turn my heart to the things on which his own is fixed. He loves my soul, but not me, and we are scarcely friends.” Florida continued to look at him with steadfast, compassionate eyes. “It seems very strange, almost like some dream,” she murmured, “that you should be saying all this to me, Don Ippolito, and I do not know why I should have asked you anything.” The pity of this virginal heart must have been very sweet to the man on whom she looked it. His eyes worshipped her, as he answered her devoutly, “It was due to the truth in you that I should seem to you what I am.” “Indeed, you make me ashamed!” she cried with a blush. “It was selfish of me to ask you to speak. And now, after what you have told me, I am so helpless and I know so very little that I don’t understand how to comfort or encourage you. But surely you can somehow help yourself. Are men, that seem so strong and able, just as powerless as women, after all, when it comes to real trouble? Is a man”-- “I cannot answer. I am only a priest,” said Don Ippolito coldly, letting his eyes drop to the gown that fell about him like a woman’s skirt. “Yes, but a priest should be a man, and so much more; a priest”-- Don Ippolito shrugged his shoulders. “No, no!” cried the girl. “Your own schemes have all failed, you say; then why do you not think of becoming a priest in reality, and getting the good there must be in such a calling? It is singular that I should venture to say such a thing to you, and it must seem presumptuous and ridiculous for me, a Protestant--but our ways are so different.”... She paused, coloring deeply, then controlled herself, and added with grave composure, “If you were to pray”-- “To what, madamigella?” asked the priest, sadly. “To what!” she echoed, opening her eyes full upon him. “To God!” Don Ippolito made no answer. He let his head fall so low upon his breast that she could see the sacerdotal tonsure. “You must excuse me,” she said, blushing again. “I did not mean to wound your feelings as a Catholic. I have been very bold and intrusive. I ought to have remembered that people of your church have different ideas--that the saints”-- Don Ippolito looked up with pensive irony. “Oh, the poor saints!” “I don’t understand you,” said Florida, very gravely. “I mean that I believe in the saints as little as you do.”