“Tito has always known that my life is bound up with my father’s,” said Romola; “and he is better to my father than I am: he delights in making him happy.”
“Ah, he’s not made of the same clay as other men, is he?” said Bernardo, smiling. “Thy father has thought of shutting woman’s folly out of thee by cramming thee with Greek and Latin; but thou hast been as ready to believe in the first pair of bright eyes and the first soft words that have come within reach of thee, as if thou couldst say nothing by heart but Paternosters, like other Christian men’s daughters.”
“Now, godfather,” said Romola, shaking her head playfully, “as if it were only bright eyes and soft words that made me love Tito! You know better. You know I love my father and you because you are both good, and I love Tito too because he is so good. I see it, I feel it, in everything he says and does. And if he is handsome, too, why should I not love him the better for that? It seems to me beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks. You know you must have been a very handsome youth, godfather,”—she looked up with one of her happy, loving smiles at the stately old man—“you were about as tall as Tito, and you had very fine eyes; only you looked a little sterner and prouder, and—”
“And Romola likes to have all the pride to herself?” said Bernardo, not inaccessible to this pretty coaxing. “However, it is well that in one way Tito’s demands are more modest than those of any Florentine husband of fitting rank that we should have been likely to find for you; he wants no dowry.”
So it was settled in that way between Messer Bernardo del Nero, Romola, and Tito. Bardo assented with a wave of the hand when Bernardo told him that he thought it would be well now to begin to sell property and