“It has done you no harm, Francisco, or rather it has done you much good.  It has given you the citizenship of Venice, in itself no slight advantage to you as a trader here.  It has given you three hundred ducats a year, which, as a mark of honour, is not to be despised.  It has won for you a name throughout the republic, and has given you a fame and popularity such as few, if any, citizens of Venice ever attained at your age.  Lastly, it has made a man of you.  It has given you confidence and self possession.  You have acquired the habit of commanding men.  You have been placed in positions which have called for the exercise of rare judgment, prudence, and courage; and you have come well through it all.  It is but four years since your father left you a lad in my keeping.  Now you are a man, whom the highest noble in Venice might be proud of calling his son.  You have no reason to regret, therefore, that you have, for a year, taken up soldiering instead of trading, especially as our business was all stopped by the war, and you must have passed your time in inactivity.”

In the evening, when the merchant and Francis were alone together, the former said: 

“I told you last autumn, Francis, when I informed you that, henceforth, you would enter into my house as a partner in the business, when we again recommenced trade, that I had something else in my mind, but the time to speak of it had not then arrived.  I think it has now come.  Tell me, my boy, frankly, if there is anything that you would wish to ask of me.”

Francis was silent for a moment; then he said: 

“You have done so much, Signor Polani.  You have heaped kindness upon me, altogether beyond anything I could have hoped for, that, even did I wish for more, I could not ask it.”

“Then there is something more you would like, Francisco.  Remember that I have told you that I regard you as a son, and therefore I wish you to speak to me, as frankly as if I was really your father.”

“I fear, signor, that you will think me audacious, but since you thus urge upon me to speak all that is in my mind, I cannot but tell you the truth.  I love your daughter, Giulia, and have done so ever since the first day that my eyes fell on her.  It has seemed to me too much, even to hope, that she can ever be mine, and I have been careful in letting no word expressive of my feelings pass my lips.  It still seems, to me, beyond the bounds of possibility that I could successfully aspire to the hand of the daughter of one of the noblest families in Venice.”

“I am glad you have spoken frankly, dear lad,” the merchant said.  “Ever since you rescued my daughters from the hands of Mocenigo, it has been on my mind that someday, perhaps, you would be my son-in-law, as well as my son by adoption.  I have watched with approval that, as Giulia grew from a child into a young woman, her liking for you seemed to ripen into affection.  This afternoon I have spoken to her, and she has acknowledged that she would obey my commands, to regard you as her future husband, with gladness.