"I do not fear my father's violence," he said, "but I do fear his
anger. When it came to the point he would not imprison me. I would marry
Margaret to-morrow if that was my only fear. No; he would disown me. I
should take Margaret from her father, and give her a poor husband,
who would never thrive, weighed down by his parent's curse. Madam! I
sometimes think if I could marry her secretly, and then take her away
to some country where my craft is better paid than in this; and after
a year or two, when the storm had blown over, you know, could come back
with money in my purse, and say, 'My dear parents, we do not seek your
substance, we but ask you to love us once more as you used, and as we
have never ceased to love you'--but, alas! I shall be told these are the
dreams of an inexperienced young man."

The old lady's eyes sparkled.

"It is no dream, but a piece of wonderful common-sense in a boy;
it remains to be seen whether you have spirit to carry out your own
thought. There is a country, Gerard, where certain fortune awaits you
at this moment. Here the arts freeze, but there they flourish, as they
never yet flourished in any age or land."

"It is Italy!" cried Gerard. "It is Italy!"

"Ay, Italy! where painters are honoured like princes, and scribes are
paid three hundred crowns for copying a single manuscript. Know you not
that his Holiness the Pope has written to every land for skilful scribes
to copy the hundreds of precious manuscripts that are pouring into that
favoured land from Constantinople, whence learning and learned men are
driven by the barbarian Turks?"