"Yes, and the moment has come to redeem my promise. You will have even more confidence in me, Colombe, when you know all the reasons I have for loving our Ascanio." Thereupon Benvenuto took a hand of each of his children in his own, and told them what follows, in his grave, melodious voice, beneath the glimmering stars in the peaceful silence of the night. IV STEFANA "Twenty years since, I was twenty years old, as you are now, Ascanio, and I was at work with a Florentine goldsmith named Raphael del Moro. He was a good workman and did not lack taste; but he cared more for rest than for work, allowing himself to be inveigled into attending parties with disheartening facility, and, although he had little money, himself leading astray those who were in his studio. Very often I was left alone in the house, singing over some piece of work I had in hand. In those days I sang as Scozzone does. All the sluggards in the city came as a matter of course to Master Raphael for employment, or rather in quest of pleasure, for he had the reputation of being too weak ever to quarrel. One grows rich slowly with such habits as his; so he was always hard up, and soon came to be the most discredited goldsmith in Florence. "I am wrong. He had a confrère who had even less custom than he, although he was of a noble family. But it was not for irregularity in meeting his obligations that Gismondo Gaddi was cried down, but for his notorious lack of talent and his sordid avarice. As everything intrusted to him left his hands imperfect or spoiled, and not a customer, unless he happened to be a stranger, ventured into his shop, Gismondo undertook to earn his living by usury, and to loan money at enormous interest to young men desirous of discounting their future prospects. This profession succeeded better than the other, as Gaddi always demanded good security, and went into nothing without reliable guaranties. With that exception, he was, as he himself said, very considerate and long-suffering; he loaned to everybody, compatriots and foreigners, Jews and Christians. He would have loaned to St. Peter upon the keys of paradise, or to Satan upon his estates in hell. "Need I say that he loaned to my poor Raphael del Moro, who consumed every day his provision for the morrow, but whose sterling integrity never wavered. Their constant connection in business, and the social ostracism to which both were subjected, tended to bring the two goldsmiths together. Del Moro was deeply grateful for his confrère's untiring amiability in the matter of advancing money. Gaddi thoroughly esteemed an honest and accommodating debtor. They were, in a word, the best friends in the world, and Gismondo would not have missed for an empire one of the parties with which Del Moro regaled him.