Such was the home to which Donna Faustina Montevarchi returned to live after spending eight years in the convent of the Sacro Cuore.  During that time she had acquired the French language, a slight knowledge of music, a very limited acquaintance with the history of her own country, a ready memory for prayers and litanies—­and her manners.  Manners among the Italians are called education.  What we mean by the latter word, namely, the learning acquired, is called, more precisely, instruction.  An educated person means a person who has acquired the art of politeness.  An instructed person means some one who has learnt rather more than the average of what is generally learnt by the class of people to whom he belongs.  Donna Faustina was extremely well educated, according to Roman ideas, but her instruction was not, and was not intended to be, any better than that imparted to the young girls with whom she was to associate in the world.

As far as her character was concerned, she herself knew very little of it, and would probably have found herself very much embarrassed if called upon to explain what character meant.  She was new and the world was very old.  The nuns had told her that she must never care for the world, which was a very sinful place, full of thorns, ditches, pitfalls and sinners, besides the devil and his angels.  Her sister Flavia, on the contrary, assured her that the world was very agreeable, when mamma happened to go to sleep in a corner during a ball; that all men were deceivers, but that when a man danced well it made no difference whether he were a deceiver or not, since he danced with his legs and not with his conscience; that there was no happiness equal to a good cotillon, and that there were a number of these in every season; and, finally, that provided one did not spoil one’s complexion one might do anything, so long as mamma was not looking.

To Donna Faustina, these views, held by the nuns on the one hand and by Flavia on the other, seemed very conflicting.  She would not, indeed, have hesitated in choosing, even if she had been permitted any choice; for it was clear that, since she had seen the convent side of the question, it would be very interesting to see the other.  But, having been told so much about sinners, she was on the look-out for them, and looked forward to making the acquaintance of one of them with a pardonable excitement.  Doubtless she would hate a sinner if she saw one, as the nuns had taught her, although the sinner of her imagination was not a very repulsive personage.  Flavia probably knew a great many, and Flavia said that society was very amusing.  Faustina wished that the autumn months would pass a little more quickly, so that the carnival season might begin.