SIX SUNNY MONTHS.BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.CHAPTERVII.AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL.Thenext morning coffee was brought to the bed-rooms at the first peep of dawn, and when the little party went out for their walk the sun had only just begun to set the sea-line on fire.They stepped for a moment into the Franciscan church next door, then went down the road leading past it to the Campagna. Fresh and sweet the morning air touched them as they sauntered along—not the morning breeze of New England, simple in associations as the breath of a newly-created being, but like the breath of one, immortally beautiful, about whom Calliope, Clio, and Erato have circled in their stately dance through the unfading centuries. Not only every spot of earth, but every waft of air, was haunted.Mr. Vane stopped them presently with a silent gesture, and pointed to a near height, where a solitary cloud, softly resplendent in all its beautiful undulations, was slowly and loathly detaching itself to float upward and disappear in the sky, as if the door of a sapphire palace had opened to receive it. “Is it Diana?” he whispered.“The Jew has touched nature with a pen of fire,” the Signora said as they walked on again; “but the pagan has dominated, and still in a certain sense possesses that beautiful realm. If, as Milton sings, ‘the parting genius was with sighing rent’ from tree and grove at the birth of Christ, its ghost stillhaunts the spot, and Milton himself uses pagan language when he sings the beauties of nature. Why does not some Christian Job dislodge these ‘mythic fancies,’ and make nature live with a life that is something more than the rustling of a garment? Job made the lightnings go and return at the command of God, saying, ‘Here we are!’ and he speaks of the ‘store-houses of the snow.’ The Christian poet seems to fear his imagination, to find it tainted, and, instead of purifying it, and setting it flying, like a bird or a butterfly, through the garden of the earth, he puts it in a cage or under a glass along with the pagan images he only glances askance at. Now and then one meets with a saint whose heart overflows in that direction, likeSt.Francis of Assisi, calling the birds his sisters. Blessed Fra Egidio made the flowers bear witness, as when he proved the miraculous motherhood of the Virgin to the doubtingPredicatore. At each of the three strokes of his staff in the road, following his three assertions of Our Lady’s purity, up sprang a beautiful lily. Our Lord set the example in his reference to the lilies of the field: they toiled not, neither did they spin, yet the Creator had arrayed them as Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed. Did he talk to his mother about the flowers, I wonder? When the boat was tossed by a tempest, he spoke to the waves, as to livingcreatures, saying, ‘Peace, be still!’ Do spirits troublesome and troubled take shape, or, stretching their invisible hands, catch the shapes of nature as weapons, and lash with foam or strike with lightning? We cannot know, and we need not know; and we must not assert. It is not, however, forbidden to fancy. Nature may serve as the playground wherein our imagination and fancy shall exercise themselves and prepare our minds for the wonders of the spiritual life. Fancy and imagination are as really a part of ourselves, and as truly and wisely given by God, as reason and will. They are the sweet little enticements inviting us to fly off‘From the dark edges of the sensual ground,’as the bird-mother coaxes her young to try its wings in little flights from twig to twig before it soars into the heavens. No, it is not forbidden to the fancy to play around the mysterious life that makes the bud swell into the flower and the seed grow into the lofty tree, so long as we see all in God, and see in God the Trinity, and, in the aspiring flame of created adoring spirits, behold Maria Santissima as the white point that touches the foot of the throne.”The Signora had been speaking slowly and dreamily, pausing now and then; but at the last, growing earnest, had, as it were, waked herself, and become aware that she was talking aloud and was listened to.Smiling, and blushing too a little, “Scusino!” she said. “I cannot help it. I preach as the sparks fly upward.”“I speak for a seat in your meeting-house for the rest of my life,” Mr. Vane replied promptly.“Apropos of meeting-houses,” she said, “what do you think ofthose for spires?” pointing to four gigantic cypresses in the villa they were passing.This villa was a strange, deserted-looking place just above the Campagna. Nothing in it flourished but the four cypresses, which rose to a magnificent height, their huge cones sloping at the top to a feather so slender that it was always tipped to one side. Stern, dark, and drawn close together, they looked down on the place as if they had cursed it and were waiting to see the consummation of its ruin. All their shadows were full of a multitudinous grit of cicali voices that sounded like the sharp grating together of teeth. At their feet stood the house, half-alive, half-dead, hidden from the street by the walls it was not high enough to overlook. It was like the upper part of a house that the earth had half swallowed. At each side of the door stood a statue dressed in some antique fashion, hat on head and sword on thigh. They might have been two men who were petrified there long before. At each side of the gate, inside, a stone dog, petrified too, in the act of starting up with open jaws, crumbled in a blind rage, as if a paralyzed life yet dwelt under the lichen-covered fragments, and struggled to pour forth its arrested anger.A little farther on was another decaying villa, where green moss and grasses grew all over the steps, half hid the paving-stones of the court, and choked the fountain dry. The house, once a gay and noble mansion, had now got its shutters decently closed over the sightless windows, and resigned itself to desolation. The long, dim avenues had a damp, unhealthy breath, and not a flower was to be seen.They went in and seated themselveson the steps, where the shadow of the house, covering a verdant square in the midst of the sunshine, looked like a block of verd-antique set in gold.“It reminds me of the funeral we went to inSt.Peter’s,” Mr. Vane said, glancing about the sombre place, and over the walls into the outside splendor. “The mournful pageant looked as small in that bright temple as this villa in the landscape.”The two girls gathered grasses and leaves and bits of moss, binding them into tiny bouquets to keep as mementos, and Bianca made a sketch of the two villas. They talked but little, and, in that silent and quiescent mood, perceived far more clearly the character and influence of the scene—the melancholy that was not without terror; the proud beauty that survived neglect and decay, and might at any time burst into a triumphant loveliness, if but some one should care to call forth the power hidden there; the dainty graces that would not thrust themselves forward, but waited to be sought. Yet it needed that summer and sunshine should be all about to keep the sadness from being oppressive. With those cheering influences so near and so dominantly larger, the touch of melancholy became a luxury, like a scattering of snow in wine.Isabel came back to the steps from her ramble about the place, and found her father and the Signora sitting there with no appearance of having uttered a word since she left them.“It is just the time to read something I found and brought with me from Rome,” she said. “I tucked it into my note-book, see, and something at this moment reminded me of it. Bianca was saying that if the place should be sprinkled with holywater, she did not doubt that flowers would immediately begin to grow again, and the track was not long from her notion round to this poem. It had no name when I found it, but I call it ‘At Benediction.’ The Signora told me that it was rude and unfinished; but no matter.” She read:At Benediction.“Like a dam in which the restless tideHas washed, till, grain by grain,It has sapped the solid barrierAnd swept it down again,The patience I have built and buttressedLike a fortress wall,Fretted and undermined, gives way,And shakes me in its fall.“For I have vainly toiled to shunThe meaner ways of life,With all their low and petty cares,Their cold and cruel strife.My brain is wild with tangled thoughts,My heart is like to burst!Baffled and foiled at every turn—My God, I feel accursed!“It was human help I sought for,And human help alone;Too weary I for strainingTo a height above my own.But thy world, with all its creatures, holdsNor help nor hope for me;I fly to sanctuary,And cast myself on Thee!* * * * *“The priest is at the altarPraying with lifted hands,And, girdled round with living flame,The veilèd Presence stands.Wouldst thou kindle in our dying heartsSome new and pure desire,That thou com’st, my Lord, so wrapt aboutIn robes of waving fire?“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O silent, awful Host?Thou One with the Creator,One with the Holy Ghost!Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O pitying Son of Man?For if that thou wilt bless me,Who is there that can ban?“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,Within whose knowledge restThe labyrinthine ways of life,The cares of every breast?My doubting hope would fain outshakeHer pinions, if she durst;For if truly thou wilt bless me,I cannot feel accursed!“TheTantum ErgorisesIn a chorus glad and strong,And, waking in their airy height,The bells join in the song.And priest, and bells, and people,As one, in loud accord,Are pouring forth their praisesOf the Sacramental Lord.“’Tis as though, from out of sorrow stepping,And a darksome way,The singers’ eyes had caught the dawnOf the celestial day.’Tis as though, behind them casting offEach clogging human load,These happy creatures, singing, walkedThe open heav’nly road.“The hymn is stilled, and onlyThe bells ring on above.Oh! bless me, God of mercy;Have mercy, God of love!For I have fought a cruel life,And fallen in the fray.Oh! bless me with a blessingThat shall sweep it all away!* * * * *“It is finished. From the altarThe priest is stepping down;His incense-perfumed silver trainBrushes my sombre gown.The mingled crowd of worshippersAre going as they came;And the altar-candles drop to darkness,Tiny flame by flame.“Silence and softly-breathing PeaceFloat downward, hand in hand,And either side the threshold,As guardian angels stand.I see their holy faces,And fear no face of man;For when my God has blessed me,Who is there that can ban?”The Signora rose rather hastily. “If we are going to Monte Compatri this afternoon, we have no time to linger about reading rhymes,” she said.They went out into the sunshine, already burning hot, and stole along, one by one, in the shadow of the high wall, walking over crowds of little pale, pink morning-glories, that crept humbly on the ground, not knowing themselves to be vines with a power to rise and climb to the height of a man, any more than dear Hans Andersen’s ugly duck knew that he was a swan, though at one point they might have seen, through an opening in the stonework, better-instructed morning-glories climbing hedge and shrub, and blowing out a rhythmic joy through their great white trumpets far up in the air. The greatest pride or aspiration these little creatures seemed capable of was when, now and then, one grew, breath by breath, over some small obstacle in its path, and bloomedwith its pretty pink cheek against a gray bit of stone. The whole ground blushed softly with their sweet humility.They entered the shaded avenue that circles the lower part of the town, and saw the beautiful city climbing on the one hand, and the beautiful Campagna spread out on the other; passed the little woodenchaletwhere Garibaldi was holding his court—a wooden house is such a wonder in Italy!—and the public garden, sweet with the infantine breath and bright with the infantine hues of countless petunias, and at length found refuge in Villa Torlonia.Thick and dark, the lofty trees knit their branches over the seats where the travellers sat and looked at the grand fountain-front, with its stone eagle and rows of huge stone vases along the top, and its beautiful cascade and basin in the centre. At either side this cascade, in the ten or twelve niches, tall stone vases overflowed with wild-flowers that had once overflowed with water, the masks above still holding between their dry lips the pipes from which the sunny streams had sprung. Far above could be seen, in the rich green gloom of overarching trees, cascade after cascade dancing down the steep slope, and, farther yet, the top of a great column of water that marked the uppermost fountain.“It is too late to go up now,” the Signora said; “but you can see the way. It goes round in a circling avenue, or up the steps that are at each side of the ten cascades. I think there are ten. But the steps at the right are constantly wet with the spray, and covered with ferns and moss. You go up at the left, which the sun sometimes touches, and which is always dry. Below here, too, there are two ways of going up, either bythe parting avenues or by the little dark door you see beside the cascade. That door leads through a dim passage, where the walls are all a green tremble with maidenhair fern growing as thick as feathers on a bird, and up a little dim winding stair that brings you out beside the stone eagle there. I gathered one of those ferns once that was half a yard long. You see they build palaces here for waters as well as for princes.”The day went by like a dream, steeped in dazzling light, embalmed with the odors of flowers growing in a luxuriance and beauty new to their northern eyes, sprinkled over with a ceaseless fountain-spray, sung through by countless larks, and made magnificent by palace after palace, and by constantly-recurring and incomparable views. For many a year to come they would remember the honey-snow of the orange-trees and the clustered flames of the pomegranates; they would compare their rose-bushes with the tree which, in one of these gardens, held its tea-roses nodding over their heads, nor love their own shyer gardens the less, indeed; and in their trim walks, and loath and delicate blooming, they would sometimes think with longing of the careless profusion of the land where the best of nature and the best of art dwelt together in the familiar and graceful intercourse of daily life.An hour before sunset they were again in their carriage, and, after a short drive, found themselves following the long loops of the road that lead leisurely up the side of Monte Compatri, through the rich woods, through the pure and exquisitely invigorating air, with all the world unrolling itself again before their eyes in a view almost equal to that of Tusculum.They were obliged to alight in the piazza of the fountain; for the steep and narrow streets did not admit of carriages. From this piazza the streets straggled, climbing and twisting, breaking constantly into little flights of stairs, and sometimes ending in a court or at a door.“Prepare to be stared at,” the Signora said, as they took their way up theVia Lunga. “We are the only ladies in the town whose headgear is not a handkerchief; and as for Mr. Vane, they are very likely to take him for Prince Borghese. And, come to think of it,” she said, looking at him attentively, “you are very much like the prince, Mr. Vane.”The gentleman smiled quietly, without answering. He recollected what the Signora had forgotten—that she had once expressed the greatest admiration for Prince Borghese. He took the lady’s parasol and travelling-bag from her hand, and offered his arm, which the steep way and her fatigue made acceptable, and the two girls followed, searching on every side with bright and curious eyes, and murmuring little exclamations to each other. The irregular stone houses, so near each other, face to face, that one could easily toss a ball from window to window across the street, were quite vacant, except for pigeons that flew in at the windows, or a cat that might be seen sleeping on a chair or window-ledge, or, perhaps, for a few hens searching for crumbs. The families were all out of doors. In one little corner portico sat a handsome woman, with her dark hair beautifully plaited, and a bright handkerchief laid over her massive shoulders. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she sat smiling, chatting with a neighbor now andthen, and enjoying a conscious queenship of the place. At either side of her was a young girl, slim, dark, and bright, a mere slip of the mother. These girls kept their eyes cast down, and appeared to think only of their knitting. On the next step was Carlin’s group. Further on, a young mother steadied her year-old child between her knees and a chair, while she darned a stocking. One perceived that the whole and snowy-white stockings worn even by the poorest were not kept in order without constant care and labor. Near by, an old woman with a distaff spun flax, and entertained a company of men with her lively talk. This antique goddess was, perhaps, the wit of the place. She was, however, in no manner allied to the graces; for the thin gray hair gathered tightly with a comb to the top of her head, and entirely uncovered, and the white kerchief knotted round her neck, instead of being draped in the becoming Italian fashion, showed that she had long since ceased to hold by even the shadow of a personal charm. Outside the door of a littlecafé, the only one in the place, half a dozen men sat at tables, drinking coffee and smoking, while on the door-step a man with a furnace and rotary stove, and a basket of charcoal beside him, roasted coffee to keep up the supply, lazily turning the crank while he listened to the gossip going on at the tables. On a neighboring step were gathered several women in a little sewing-circle. To these came a woman up the street, bearing on her head a tub covered over with nodding fern-leaves, which she set down on the wide top of the balustrade. The circle suspended their work while the woman displayed a sample of her wares—twelve frogsrun on to a stick. She was met with shrugs and exclamations of disapproval.“Poor frogs!” said Isabel. “They look like little white babies.”They were very poor little babies indeed, thin and small as spiders.The frog-merchant, nothing disconcerted, laid aside her first sample and displayed another. “Oh! those are better,” the women cried, and immediately began to chaffer about the price.Children swarmed everywhere. The close little town was as full of them as the shoe where the old woman we all know so well dwelt with her tribe of young ones. It did not need a powerful imagination to picture the place boiling over like a pot some day, with a many-colored froth ofbambinidown the mountain-side. It was out of the question that there should be room for the rising generation to stay in the town when they should have become a risen generation; for they were six or seven in a family, and already the houses were full.“Perhaps one of them will go to America, and set up on some sidewalk a furnace for roasting chestnuts,” Bianca said. “And perhaps, some day, ten or fifteen years hence, we may stop and ask such a person what part of Italy he came from, and he will answer, ‘From Monte Compatri’; and we will say, ‘Ah! we have been there, at such a time; and perhaps it was you we saw playing inVia Lungaor in thepiazza?’ and he will brighten an instant, and then, all at once, begin to cry. And Isabel will almost cry for him, and will give him her best handkerchief to wipe his tears away, perhaps wiping them for him; and I will buy all his chestnuts, which will be cold by the time we get home, and papa will slip somemoney into his hand, and ask him if he wants work to do, and we will all tell him where we live, and to come to us if he should get into trouble. And then we will go home and talk for all the rest of the day about nothing but Italy, and that day we went up Monte Compatri. And Isabel will insist that she recognizes the fellow perfectly, and try to coax papa to take him for a gardener or something.”“And then,” resumed Mr. Vane, continuing the story, “we shall have the lazy vagabond coming to us every day begging, and we shall miss things out of the room where he is left alone a few minutes, and Isabel will give him my clothes, till I shall have nothing left to wear.”“Meantime, what will the Signora be doing?” that lady demanded, finding herself left out. “Is she to have no part?”She did not see the pleasant glance that fell on her from the eyes of the gentleman at her side. She was looking down, a little hurt, she hardly knew why. For was it not a matter understood that her home was in Italy, and theirs in America?“Why, you,” said Isabel—“you will be inCasa Ottant’Otto, thousands of miles away, and we shall be writing you all about it.”“Not so!” Mr. Vane said. “She will be with us at the time, I think, and will correct all our mistakes, and reward all our well-doing with her approbation.”“There, that sounds comfortable,” the lady said, smiling. “I was really feeling neglected and left out in the cold.”They had come to the street that encircles the town, and on the outside of which a row of houses hangs on the mountain-edge. In one of these they were to spend the night, and, as she spoke, the Signora lookedup brightly, and beckoned some one in a window above to come down and open the door for them.Mr. Vane spoke rather hastily in answer to her remark, and apparently for her ear alone. “If you should be outside, the cold will then be inside the circle,” he said. “It is you who are to choose.”“Oh! thank you,” she replied lightly. “And now mind the steps. They are rather dark.”The street from which they entered this house was so narrow, and the houses so joined, that they seemed to be still in the heart of the town; but when they had passed the dusky stairs, and entered the long, lowsalaat the head of them, they found the place like a nest in a tree-top. The mountain-side dropped sheer from under the very windows, and the view swept round from Rome and the sea to Palestrina and the mountains.In thissalathe whole family of thepadronehad assembled to welcome and stare at the strangers before giving the room up to their use. A dozen or so smiling faces, full of good-will and curiosity, clustered about without the slightest sign of any thought that they might be intruding, or that there was to be any limit to the free use of their eyes. An old woman leaning on a cane muttered unintelligible blessings and made innumerable little bows right and left, a hale young matron talked and welcomed, a servant smiled unceasingly, a young girl with a baby in her arms asked abrupt questions in a loud voice, and children of all ages filled up the gaps.The young ladies resigned their clothes to examination, and began shyly petting the little ones, and the Signora gave orders for their entertainment. While she was talking the servant and two of theboys ran skurrying out of the room and presently returned with an air of great pride, bearing in their hands beautiful white pigeons, which they caressed while displaying.The young ladies admired them and smoothed their snowy plumage, without being in the least aware why they had been brought.“They are for our dinner to-morrow,” the Signora remarked with great composure.There was a little duet of dismayed exclamations. “I thought they were family pets!” Bianca said, recoiling.“And so they are, my dear,” was the reply. “They pet them up to the moment of killing them, and praise while they are eating them. Their fondness never ceases. And now let us take off our bonnets and have supper.”The room was long, low, and paved with coarse red bricks. The ceiling, crossed by several large beams, was papered in compartments representing squares of blue sky with light clouds floating over, and a bird or two here and there in the space, and the flowery walls were nearly hidden by great presses holding linen, by sideboards laden with dishes, and by the high backs of patriarchal old chairs, very picturesque to look at and very penitential to sit in.All the centre of this room was taken up by a long table, at one end of which their supper was speedily prepared. There was bread, as good as could be had in Rome, and such a salad as could scarcely be had in any city, the oil as sweet as cream, and the lettuce so crisp and delicate that it could be almost powdered between the hands. Just as they sat down a large decanter of gold-colored wine, ice-cold from the grotto, was placed before them. For in these littleItalian towns, however they may lack the necessities of life, they are never without the luxuries.They sat down merrily, only one of the family remaining to wait on them, the others hovering about the door, and watching the faces of their guests as they ate, to see how the food pleased them.“Papa,” said Isabel, pointing to a plate before her, on which a small onion shone like silver, “do you recognize that vegetable?”“I recognoseit,” replied Mr. Vane, who would sometimes play upon words.“Well, I propose that we agree to divide it in four parts, each a little larger than the last, the largest for you, the smallest for Bianca, and that we all eat our portions, and so find no fault with each other.”Bianca instantly declined the invitation, and blushed deeply when they rallied her on her daintiness.“These onions are very delicate and sweet,” the Signora said. “I used to avoid them, till one day I received a call from a personage of the most dignified position and unexceptionable manners, from whose breath I perceived, in the course of the conversation, that he had been eating these little onions. But the faint odor that reached me as he spoke was as though a rose and an onion had been grafted together. Since then I have eaten without scruple.”But Bianca still declined, still blushing. Why? Was it that her affection for the friend ever tenderly remembered had so consecrated her to him that nothing but what was sweetest and purest must touch where his image was enshrined, whether he were present or absent? She was quite extreme enough in her sensitive delicacy for such a thought.Supper over, they went out into aloggiaattached to theirsalaand overhanging the steep mountainside, and watched the sun go down over the sea. The globe of fire had already touched the water-line, that by day showed only like a line of purple cloud, and kindled it to an intense lustre; and, as they looked, there was half a sun above the horizon, and another half visible as though seen through the transparent edge of the world over which it disappeared; then, without diminishing, it dropped out of sight, leaving an ineffable, silent glory over the scene. The fire of the sea faded to a faint gold, the rosy violet of the Campagna changed to a deep purple, and Earth, raising her shadowy hands, put aside the curtaining light of day, and looked out at the stars.The sisters withdrew presently, and left the two elders to admire the beauties of nature at their leisure. Isabel, screened off in one corner of thesala, made voluminous notes of her experiences, and planned a wonderful story, into which they should all be woven. Seated on a footstool, with a brass lamp hanging to the back of a chair near her, and her writing on her knees, she saw one character after another emerge from the shades and take form and individuality before her eyes, as if they grew there independent of her will. They spoke and moved of themselves, and she only looked and listened. Now and then some trait, some feature, some word, was such as she had seen in real life, but these people were not portraits, though they might have such resemblances, and even might have been suggested by persons she had known. The shades grew more and more alive, gathering into substance. Stone walls built themselves up silently and with amore than Aladdin-like celerity, and gardens burst into instantaneous bloom. If she willed the sea present, its waves rolled up to her feet in foam, or caught and tossed her in their strong arms; if she called for forests, swiftly their darkening branches shut her in, and her light feet trod their dry, crackling twigs and rich, disordered flowers. The very accidents of a great pine-cone to stumble over, or an unexpected lizard running across the path, were there. The dull walls of the room she sat in, the rough bricks under her feet, the crowded town about her, were as though they were not. She was free of the world.O precious gift of the magical lamp! which, at a touch, calls about its possessor all that men wish, and work, and strive for of earthly good, without the pain or responsibilities of earthly possession; which gives the rose without its thorn, the wine without its lees, the friend without the doubt, the triumph without disappointment! Happy they who, when what we call real life presses too hard or becomes too dull, can put it aside for the time, and enter a world of their own, for ever beautiful and satisfying, who, walking the common street, see things unseen of common eyes, and for whom many a beauty smiles under an ugly mask.Bianca was in no such exalted mood of fancy, but, withdrawn to the chamber she was to occupy with the Signora, was lifting the holier eyes of faith, and, with childlike simplicity and confidence, laying all her heart open to God, sending up her petitions for earthly happiness on a cloud of the Acts, said after her own manner: “O my God! I believe in thee, I hope in thee, I love thee, I thank thee, and I am sorry for having offendedthee”; and then, as a thought or wish more earthly thrust itself forward, presenting it, unafraid and undoubting. Living and dead, friends and strangers, the poor, and those who had no one to pray for them—all were remembered by this tender heart; but ever, like the refrain of a song, came back the petition, “Bless, and guard from all ill of soul or body, him who is so much more to me than all other men, and, if it be thy will, give him to me for a friend and companion as long as I shall live.”The two in the balcony, left to themselves, were talking quietly, having no mind to separate. The Signora found in the society of Mr. Vane a pleasure altogether new to her—the pleasure of being able to depend on some one. It was only now, when she was surrounded with a constant, friendly care, that she became aware how unprotected and unhelped her former life had been, and how sweet was that repose which the protected enjoy. Besides, Mr. Vane’s care was of a particularly agreeable kind. It did not, by watching and seizing on opportunities of serving, suggest the existence of an emotional care which might change to neglect, but was simply a calm readiness, which assumed, as a matter of course, that it should help when help was needed.“I shall never be sufficiently thankful for having been led to make this European journey,” Mr. Vane said after a little silence. “It has done me good in many ways, and promises more even than it has performed as yet.”“I am glad you say thankful instead of glad,” the Signora said, smiling. “Perhaps, too, I should say, I am thankful you say so.”He thought a moment before speaking, and recollected that onlya few months before he would not have used the word. The change had come so gradually that he had scarcely been aware of it. “Yet I believe that I always recognize the Source from which all good flows,” he resumed seriously. “At least, I never denied it. Here religion is such a household affair, one falls after awhile into the habit of expressing what before was only felt, and felt, perhaps, unconsciously.”“It is better so,” was the reply. “We strengthen a true feeling when we give it utterance. Besides, we may thus communicate it to others.”“One of my causes of thankfulness,” he resumed, “is that my daughters should be associated with you. I wish you could make them more like yourself, and I am sure that their admiration and affection for you will lead them naturally to imitate you and to receive your instructions willingly. They have been to me a source of great anxiety, and I feel myself utterly incapable of directing them; for, while I wish them to be modest and womanly, on the one hand, I as certainly wish them to be capable of finding in life an object and a happiness which shall not depend on any other person. It would please me to see them well married; but God forbid that an unmarried life should be for them a disappointed life! What I could do for them I have done, but with an immense self-distrust; and I have felt safer when leaving them to themselves than when interfering or seeking to guide them.”“I should think you had done well both in guiding and in leaving them free,” the lady replied. “Many parents do too much either one way or the other. Does not the result satisfy you so far?”She was surprised at the emotionwith which he spoke, not knowing anything of his married life.“The result is not yet. Everything depends on their marriage, or their reason for not marrying.” He hesitated, then went on, as if incapable of keeping silence longer on a subject of which he had never spoken: “The fate of their mother is to me a constant warning and a constant pain. In one respect I can save them from that; for I shall never urge them to marry, and shall never oppose any choice of theirs, unless it should be a manifestly bad one. But I cannot guard them from the tyranny of some mistaken sense of duty, or mistaken pride or delicacy which they might conceal from all the world.”Startled by this half-revelation, his companion kept silence, waiting for him to speak. It was impossible he should not speak after such a beginning.“I do not know which was the more deeply wronged, I or my poor Bianca,” he said presently. “It all came from the blundering coarseness of parents who overstepped, not their authority—for they never commanded her—but their power to influence, which, with one like her, was quite as strong. Their mistake has taught me to interfere and control less the gentle, silent one than the one who speaks her mind out clearly and loudly. I have always thought that the mother of my daughters had some preference which she never acknowledged. Often, more often than not, these preferences come to nothing and are soon forgotten; but not always. She did not wish to marry me, but she consented without hesitation, and I believed that the slight reserve would vanish with time. Perhaps she believed it too. Her conscience was as pure as snow. Shedid perfectly, with all her power, what she believed to be her duty. But that preoccupation, whether for another person or for a single life, was never vanquished. You have, perhaps, chased a butterfly when you were a child, beaten it with your hat from flower to flower, and at last imprisoned it under a glass; or you have caught a hummingbird that has strayed into your room, and flown from you as long as it had strength. Neither resisted when it was caught; but the down was brushed off the butterfly’s wings, and the bird was dead in your hand. My wife omitted nothing that a good will could accomplish. She was grateful for my efforts to make her happy; she was calm, and even cheerful; and I am sure that she never said to herself, even, that she was sorry for having married me. But the only beaming smile I ever saw on her face was when she knew that she was going to die.”His voice trembled a little, and he stopped a moment, as if to steady it before going on.“Was not I wronged too? Was not the unwilling jailer as unfortunate as the unwilling prisoner? I say nothing of my own personal disappointment, though that was great. The mutual confidence, the delightful companionship, the perfect union, to which I had looked forward, and which were my ideal of marriage—where were they? In place of them I never lost the feeling that I had a victim for ever at my side. I felt as if I had been unmanly and cruel; yet the fault was not mine. She gave herself to me in all that she could, yet she was never mine.”He paused again; yet this time his voice trembled more in resuming than in leaving off his story.“I rejoiced in her release; and Ilook forward to no future meeting with her that shall be different from that meeting which we are permitted to look forward to with all the good in heaven. If other husbands and wives expect some closer partnership in heaven, I neither expect nor wish it. I have resigned her absolutely and for ever. I do not think that I am morbid. You should know her peculiar character to understand well how I could be made to feel that crystal wall that always stood between us. I felt it so that I really believe, if the children were not demonstrative in their affection for me, I should not have the courage to show any fondness for them. I used, when they were little ones, to look at them sometimes with a kind of terror when I came home, to see if they would smile brightly, and run to me as if they were glad from the heart to see me. I always waited for them, and, thank God! they never failed me. Duty and submission are there, but a perfect affection makes them almost unnecessary.”Finishing, he glanced for the first time at his companion, and saw that she was in tears.“My dear friend!” he exclaimed, “how selfish I have been! Forgive me!”“No,” she replied gently, wiping her eyes, “you are not selfish. It seems to me that you are one of the least selfish of men. I am glad you have confidence enough in me to tell me such a story, which, I can well believe, you seldom or never speak of. It is quite natural that you should confide it to some one, and you could not expect any one to hear it unmoved.”What an exquisite moonlight covered the world, and made afairy-like, silvery day in the little balcony where the two sat! The air sparkled with it, and one tear still hanging to the Signora’s eyelashes shone like a diamond in its beams.“You are the first person to whom I have ever spoken on this subject, and the only person to whom I could confide it,” Mr. Vane said. “Can you guess why, Signora?”She looked at him with a startled glance and read his meaning, and, in the first astonishment and confusion, was utterly incapable of replying.“Shall I tell you why?” he asked.She rose hastily, blushing and distressed.“Do not say any more!” she exclaimed, and was on the point of leaving him abruptly, but checked herself, and, turning in the open low window, held out her hand to him. “You have called me friend. Let us remain friends,” she said.He touched the hand, and released it without a word, and they separated.Half an hour afterward Bianca’s face peeped out into the moonlight. “Are you still here, papa?” she said, and went to him. “Good-night, dear.”He embraced her gently, and echoed her good-night, but did not detain her a moment.“What! papa romancing here all alone?” exclaimed Isabel in her turn. “It isn’t good for your complexion nor for your disposition. Late hours and too much thinking make one sad.”“Therefore you should go to bed directly,” was his reply.She kissed him merrily and left him alone.TO BE CONTINUED.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
AN UNEXPECTED PROPOSAL.
Thenext morning coffee was brought to the bed-rooms at the first peep of dawn, and when the little party went out for their walk the sun had only just begun to set the sea-line on fire.
They stepped for a moment into the Franciscan church next door, then went down the road leading past it to the Campagna. Fresh and sweet the morning air touched them as they sauntered along—not the morning breeze of New England, simple in associations as the breath of a newly-created being, but like the breath of one, immortally beautiful, about whom Calliope, Clio, and Erato have circled in their stately dance through the unfading centuries. Not only every spot of earth, but every waft of air, was haunted.
Mr. Vane stopped them presently with a silent gesture, and pointed to a near height, where a solitary cloud, softly resplendent in all its beautiful undulations, was slowly and loathly detaching itself to float upward and disappear in the sky, as if the door of a sapphire palace had opened to receive it. “Is it Diana?” he whispered.
“The Jew has touched nature with a pen of fire,” the Signora said as they walked on again; “but the pagan has dominated, and still in a certain sense possesses that beautiful realm. If, as Milton sings, ‘the parting genius was with sighing rent’ from tree and grove at the birth of Christ, its ghost stillhaunts the spot, and Milton himself uses pagan language when he sings the beauties of nature. Why does not some Christian Job dislodge these ‘mythic fancies,’ and make nature live with a life that is something more than the rustling of a garment? Job made the lightnings go and return at the command of God, saying, ‘Here we are!’ and he speaks of the ‘store-houses of the snow.’ The Christian poet seems to fear his imagination, to find it tainted, and, instead of purifying it, and setting it flying, like a bird or a butterfly, through the garden of the earth, he puts it in a cage or under a glass along with the pagan images he only glances askance at. Now and then one meets with a saint whose heart overflows in that direction, likeSt.Francis of Assisi, calling the birds his sisters. Blessed Fra Egidio made the flowers bear witness, as when he proved the miraculous motherhood of the Virgin to the doubtingPredicatore. At each of the three strokes of his staff in the road, following his three assertions of Our Lady’s purity, up sprang a beautiful lily. Our Lord set the example in his reference to the lilies of the field: they toiled not, neither did they spin, yet the Creator had arrayed them as Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed. Did he talk to his mother about the flowers, I wonder? When the boat was tossed by a tempest, he spoke to the waves, as to livingcreatures, saying, ‘Peace, be still!’ Do spirits troublesome and troubled take shape, or, stretching their invisible hands, catch the shapes of nature as weapons, and lash with foam or strike with lightning? We cannot know, and we need not know; and we must not assert. It is not, however, forbidden to fancy. Nature may serve as the playground wherein our imagination and fancy shall exercise themselves and prepare our minds for the wonders of the spiritual life. Fancy and imagination are as really a part of ourselves, and as truly and wisely given by God, as reason and will. They are the sweet little enticements inviting us to fly off
‘From the dark edges of the sensual ground,’
‘From the dark edges of the sensual ground,’
‘From the dark edges of the sensual ground,’
as the bird-mother coaxes her young to try its wings in little flights from twig to twig before it soars into the heavens. No, it is not forbidden to the fancy to play around the mysterious life that makes the bud swell into the flower and the seed grow into the lofty tree, so long as we see all in God, and see in God the Trinity, and, in the aspiring flame of created adoring spirits, behold Maria Santissima as the white point that touches the foot of the throne.”
The Signora had been speaking slowly and dreamily, pausing now and then; but at the last, growing earnest, had, as it were, waked herself, and become aware that she was talking aloud and was listened to.
Smiling, and blushing too a little, “Scusino!” she said. “I cannot help it. I preach as the sparks fly upward.”
“I speak for a seat in your meeting-house for the rest of my life,” Mr. Vane replied promptly.
“Apropos of meeting-houses,” she said, “what do you think ofthose for spires?” pointing to four gigantic cypresses in the villa they were passing.
This villa was a strange, deserted-looking place just above the Campagna. Nothing in it flourished but the four cypresses, which rose to a magnificent height, their huge cones sloping at the top to a feather so slender that it was always tipped to one side. Stern, dark, and drawn close together, they looked down on the place as if they had cursed it and were waiting to see the consummation of its ruin. All their shadows were full of a multitudinous grit of cicali voices that sounded like the sharp grating together of teeth. At their feet stood the house, half-alive, half-dead, hidden from the street by the walls it was not high enough to overlook. It was like the upper part of a house that the earth had half swallowed. At each side of the door stood a statue dressed in some antique fashion, hat on head and sword on thigh. They might have been two men who were petrified there long before. At each side of the gate, inside, a stone dog, petrified too, in the act of starting up with open jaws, crumbled in a blind rage, as if a paralyzed life yet dwelt under the lichen-covered fragments, and struggled to pour forth its arrested anger.
A little farther on was another decaying villa, where green moss and grasses grew all over the steps, half hid the paving-stones of the court, and choked the fountain dry. The house, once a gay and noble mansion, had now got its shutters decently closed over the sightless windows, and resigned itself to desolation. The long, dim avenues had a damp, unhealthy breath, and not a flower was to be seen.
They went in and seated themselveson the steps, where the shadow of the house, covering a verdant square in the midst of the sunshine, looked like a block of verd-antique set in gold.
“It reminds me of the funeral we went to inSt.Peter’s,” Mr. Vane said, glancing about the sombre place, and over the walls into the outside splendor. “The mournful pageant looked as small in that bright temple as this villa in the landscape.”
The two girls gathered grasses and leaves and bits of moss, binding them into tiny bouquets to keep as mementos, and Bianca made a sketch of the two villas. They talked but little, and, in that silent and quiescent mood, perceived far more clearly the character and influence of the scene—the melancholy that was not without terror; the proud beauty that survived neglect and decay, and might at any time burst into a triumphant loveliness, if but some one should care to call forth the power hidden there; the dainty graces that would not thrust themselves forward, but waited to be sought. Yet it needed that summer and sunshine should be all about to keep the sadness from being oppressive. With those cheering influences so near and so dominantly larger, the touch of melancholy became a luxury, like a scattering of snow in wine.
Isabel came back to the steps from her ramble about the place, and found her father and the Signora sitting there with no appearance of having uttered a word since she left them.
“It is just the time to read something I found and brought with me from Rome,” she said. “I tucked it into my note-book, see, and something at this moment reminded me of it. Bianca was saying that if the place should be sprinkled with holywater, she did not doubt that flowers would immediately begin to grow again, and the track was not long from her notion round to this poem. It had no name when I found it, but I call it ‘At Benediction.’ The Signora told me that it was rude and unfinished; but no matter.” She read:
At Benediction.
“Like a dam in which the restless tideHas washed, till, grain by grain,It has sapped the solid barrierAnd swept it down again,The patience I have built and buttressedLike a fortress wall,Fretted and undermined, gives way,And shakes me in its fall.“For I have vainly toiled to shunThe meaner ways of life,With all their low and petty cares,Their cold and cruel strife.My brain is wild with tangled thoughts,My heart is like to burst!Baffled and foiled at every turn—My God, I feel accursed!“It was human help I sought for,And human help alone;Too weary I for strainingTo a height above my own.But thy world, with all its creatures, holdsNor help nor hope for me;I fly to sanctuary,And cast myself on Thee!* * * * *“The priest is at the altarPraying with lifted hands,And, girdled round with living flame,The veilèd Presence stands.Wouldst thou kindle in our dying heartsSome new and pure desire,That thou com’st, my Lord, so wrapt aboutIn robes of waving fire?“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O silent, awful Host?Thou One with the Creator,One with the Holy Ghost!Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O pitying Son of Man?For if that thou wilt bless me,Who is there that can ban?“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,Within whose knowledge restThe labyrinthine ways of life,The cares of every breast?My doubting hope would fain outshakeHer pinions, if she durst;For if truly thou wilt bless me,I cannot feel accursed!“TheTantum ErgorisesIn a chorus glad and strong,And, waking in their airy height,The bells join in the song.And priest, and bells, and people,As one, in loud accord,Are pouring forth their praisesOf the Sacramental Lord.“’Tis as though, from out of sorrow stepping,And a darksome way,The singers’ eyes had caught the dawnOf the celestial day.’Tis as though, behind them casting offEach clogging human load,These happy creatures, singing, walkedThe open heav’nly road.“The hymn is stilled, and onlyThe bells ring on above.Oh! bless me, God of mercy;Have mercy, God of love!For I have fought a cruel life,And fallen in the fray.Oh! bless me with a blessingThat shall sweep it all away!* * * * *“It is finished. From the altarThe priest is stepping down;His incense-perfumed silver trainBrushes my sombre gown.The mingled crowd of worshippersAre going as they came;And the altar-candles drop to darkness,Tiny flame by flame.“Silence and softly-breathing PeaceFloat downward, hand in hand,And either side the threshold,As guardian angels stand.I see their holy faces,And fear no face of man;For when my God has blessed me,Who is there that can ban?”
“Like a dam in which the restless tideHas washed, till, grain by grain,It has sapped the solid barrierAnd swept it down again,The patience I have built and buttressedLike a fortress wall,Fretted and undermined, gives way,And shakes me in its fall.“For I have vainly toiled to shunThe meaner ways of life,With all their low and petty cares,Their cold and cruel strife.My brain is wild with tangled thoughts,My heart is like to burst!Baffled and foiled at every turn—My God, I feel accursed!“It was human help I sought for,And human help alone;Too weary I for strainingTo a height above my own.But thy world, with all its creatures, holdsNor help nor hope for me;I fly to sanctuary,And cast myself on Thee!* * * * *“The priest is at the altarPraying with lifted hands,And, girdled round with living flame,The veilèd Presence stands.Wouldst thou kindle in our dying heartsSome new and pure desire,That thou com’st, my Lord, so wrapt aboutIn robes of waving fire?“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O silent, awful Host?Thou One with the Creator,One with the Holy Ghost!Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O pitying Son of Man?For if that thou wilt bless me,Who is there that can ban?“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,Within whose knowledge restThe labyrinthine ways of life,The cares of every breast?My doubting hope would fain outshakeHer pinions, if she durst;For if truly thou wilt bless me,I cannot feel accursed!“TheTantum ErgorisesIn a chorus glad and strong,And, waking in their airy height,The bells join in the song.And priest, and bells, and people,As one, in loud accord,Are pouring forth their praisesOf the Sacramental Lord.“’Tis as though, from out of sorrow stepping,And a darksome way,The singers’ eyes had caught the dawnOf the celestial day.’Tis as though, behind them casting offEach clogging human load,These happy creatures, singing, walkedThe open heav’nly road.“The hymn is stilled, and onlyThe bells ring on above.Oh! bless me, God of mercy;Have mercy, God of love!For I have fought a cruel life,And fallen in the fray.Oh! bless me with a blessingThat shall sweep it all away!* * * * *“It is finished. From the altarThe priest is stepping down;His incense-perfumed silver trainBrushes my sombre gown.The mingled crowd of worshippersAre going as they came;And the altar-candles drop to darkness,Tiny flame by flame.“Silence and softly-breathing PeaceFloat downward, hand in hand,And either side the threshold,As guardian angels stand.I see their holy faces,And fear no face of man;For when my God has blessed me,Who is there that can ban?”
“Like a dam in which the restless tideHas washed, till, grain by grain,It has sapped the solid barrierAnd swept it down again,The patience I have built and buttressedLike a fortress wall,Fretted and undermined, gives way,And shakes me in its fall.
“Like a dam in which the restless tide
Has washed, till, grain by grain,
It has sapped the solid barrier
And swept it down again,
The patience I have built and buttressed
Like a fortress wall,
Fretted and undermined, gives way,
And shakes me in its fall.
“For I have vainly toiled to shunThe meaner ways of life,With all their low and petty cares,Their cold and cruel strife.My brain is wild with tangled thoughts,My heart is like to burst!Baffled and foiled at every turn—My God, I feel accursed!
“For I have vainly toiled to shun
The meaner ways of life,
With all their low and petty cares,
Their cold and cruel strife.
My brain is wild with tangled thoughts,
My heart is like to burst!
Baffled and foiled at every turn—
My God, I feel accursed!
“It was human help I sought for,And human help alone;Too weary I for strainingTo a height above my own.But thy world, with all its creatures, holdsNor help nor hope for me;I fly to sanctuary,And cast myself on Thee!* * * * *“The priest is at the altarPraying with lifted hands,And, girdled round with living flame,The veilèd Presence stands.Wouldst thou kindle in our dying heartsSome new and pure desire,That thou com’st, my Lord, so wrapt aboutIn robes of waving fire?
“It was human help I sought for,
And human help alone;
Too weary I for straining
To a height above my own.
But thy world, with all its creatures, holds
Nor help nor hope for me;
I fly to sanctuary,
And cast myself on Thee!
* * * * *
“The priest is at the altar
Praying with lifted hands,
And, girdled round with living flame,
The veilèd Presence stands.
Wouldst thou kindle in our dying hearts
Some new and pure desire,
That thou com’st, my Lord, so wrapt about
In robes of waving fire?
“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O silent, awful Host?Thou One with the Creator,One with the Holy Ghost!Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,O pitying Son of Man?For if that thou wilt bless me,Who is there that can ban?
“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,
O silent, awful Host?
Thou One with the Creator,
One with the Holy Ghost!
Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,
O pitying Son of Man?
For if that thou wilt bless me,
Who is there that can ban?
“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,Within whose knowledge restThe labyrinthine ways of life,The cares of every breast?My doubting hope would fain outshakeHer pinions, if she durst;For if truly thou wilt bless me,I cannot feel accursed!
“Hast thou come, indeed, for blessing,
Within whose knowledge rest
The labyrinthine ways of life,
The cares of every breast?
My doubting hope would fain outshake
Her pinions, if she durst;
For if truly thou wilt bless me,
I cannot feel accursed!
“TheTantum ErgorisesIn a chorus glad and strong,And, waking in their airy height,The bells join in the song.And priest, and bells, and people,As one, in loud accord,Are pouring forth their praisesOf the Sacramental Lord.
“TheTantum Ergorises
In a chorus glad and strong,
And, waking in their airy height,
The bells join in the song.
And priest, and bells, and people,
As one, in loud accord,
Are pouring forth their praises
Of the Sacramental Lord.
“’Tis as though, from out of sorrow stepping,And a darksome way,The singers’ eyes had caught the dawnOf the celestial day.’Tis as though, behind them casting offEach clogging human load,These happy creatures, singing, walkedThe open heav’nly road.
“’Tis as though, from out of sorrow stepping,
And a darksome way,
The singers’ eyes had caught the dawn
Of the celestial day.
’Tis as though, behind them casting off
Each clogging human load,
These happy creatures, singing, walked
The open heav’nly road.
“The hymn is stilled, and onlyThe bells ring on above.Oh! bless me, God of mercy;Have mercy, God of love!For I have fought a cruel life,And fallen in the fray.Oh! bless me with a blessingThat shall sweep it all away!* * * * *“It is finished. From the altarThe priest is stepping down;His incense-perfumed silver trainBrushes my sombre gown.The mingled crowd of worshippersAre going as they came;And the altar-candles drop to darkness,Tiny flame by flame.
“The hymn is stilled, and only
The bells ring on above.
Oh! bless me, God of mercy;
Have mercy, God of love!
For I have fought a cruel life,
And fallen in the fray.
Oh! bless me with a blessing
That shall sweep it all away!
* * * * *
“It is finished. From the altar
The priest is stepping down;
His incense-perfumed silver train
Brushes my sombre gown.
The mingled crowd of worshippers
Are going as they came;
And the altar-candles drop to darkness,
Tiny flame by flame.
“Silence and softly-breathing PeaceFloat downward, hand in hand,And either side the threshold,As guardian angels stand.I see their holy faces,And fear no face of man;For when my God has blessed me,Who is there that can ban?”
“Silence and softly-breathing Peace
Float downward, hand in hand,
And either side the threshold,
As guardian angels stand.
I see their holy faces,
And fear no face of man;
For when my God has blessed me,
Who is there that can ban?”
The Signora rose rather hastily. “If we are going to Monte Compatri this afternoon, we have no time to linger about reading rhymes,” she said.
They went out into the sunshine, already burning hot, and stole along, one by one, in the shadow of the high wall, walking over crowds of little pale, pink morning-glories, that crept humbly on the ground, not knowing themselves to be vines with a power to rise and climb to the height of a man, any more than dear Hans Andersen’s ugly duck knew that he was a swan, though at one point they might have seen, through an opening in the stonework, better-instructed morning-glories climbing hedge and shrub, and blowing out a rhythmic joy through their great white trumpets far up in the air. The greatest pride or aspiration these little creatures seemed capable of was when, now and then, one grew, breath by breath, over some small obstacle in its path, and bloomedwith its pretty pink cheek against a gray bit of stone. The whole ground blushed softly with their sweet humility.
They entered the shaded avenue that circles the lower part of the town, and saw the beautiful city climbing on the one hand, and the beautiful Campagna spread out on the other; passed the little woodenchaletwhere Garibaldi was holding his court—a wooden house is such a wonder in Italy!—and the public garden, sweet with the infantine breath and bright with the infantine hues of countless petunias, and at length found refuge in Villa Torlonia.
Thick and dark, the lofty trees knit their branches over the seats where the travellers sat and looked at the grand fountain-front, with its stone eagle and rows of huge stone vases along the top, and its beautiful cascade and basin in the centre. At either side this cascade, in the ten or twelve niches, tall stone vases overflowed with wild-flowers that had once overflowed with water, the masks above still holding between their dry lips the pipes from which the sunny streams had sprung. Far above could be seen, in the rich green gloom of overarching trees, cascade after cascade dancing down the steep slope, and, farther yet, the top of a great column of water that marked the uppermost fountain.
“It is too late to go up now,” the Signora said; “but you can see the way. It goes round in a circling avenue, or up the steps that are at each side of the ten cascades. I think there are ten. But the steps at the right are constantly wet with the spray, and covered with ferns and moss. You go up at the left, which the sun sometimes touches, and which is always dry. Below here, too, there are two ways of going up, either bythe parting avenues or by the little dark door you see beside the cascade. That door leads through a dim passage, where the walls are all a green tremble with maidenhair fern growing as thick as feathers on a bird, and up a little dim winding stair that brings you out beside the stone eagle there. I gathered one of those ferns once that was half a yard long. You see they build palaces here for waters as well as for princes.”
The day went by like a dream, steeped in dazzling light, embalmed with the odors of flowers growing in a luxuriance and beauty new to their northern eyes, sprinkled over with a ceaseless fountain-spray, sung through by countless larks, and made magnificent by palace after palace, and by constantly-recurring and incomparable views. For many a year to come they would remember the honey-snow of the orange-trees and the clustered flames of the pomegranates; they would compare their rose-bushes with the tree which, in one of these gardens, held its tea-roses nodding over their heads, nor love their own shyer gardens the less, indeed; and in their trim walks, and loath and delicate blooming, they would sometimes think with longing of the careless profusion of the land where the best of nature and the best of art dwelt together in the familiar and graceful intercourse of daily life.
An hour before sunset they were again in their carriage, and, after a short drive, found themselves following the long loops of the road that lead leisurely up the side of Monte Compatri, through the rich woods, through the pure and exquisitely invigorating air, with all the world unrolling itself again before their eyes in a view almost equal to that of Tusculum.
They were obliged to alight in the piazza of the fountain; for the steep and narrow streets did not admit of carriages. From this piazza the streets straggled, climbing and twisting, breaking constantly into little flights of stairs, and sometimes ending in a court or at a door.
“Prepare to be stared at,” the Signora said, as they took their way up theVia Lunga. “We are the only ladies in the town whose headgear is not a handkerchief; and as for Mr. Vane, they are very likely to take him for Prince Borghese. And, come to think of it,” she said, looking at him attentively, “you are very much like the prince, Mr. Vane.”
The gentleman smiled quietly, without answering. He recollected what the Signora had forgotten—that she had once expressed the greatest admiration for Prince Borghese. He took the lady’s parasol and travelling-bag from her hand, and offered his arm, which the steep way and her fatigue made acceptable, and the two girls followed, searching on every side with bright and curious eyes, and murmuring little exclamations to each other. The irregular stone houses, so near each other, face to face, that one could easily toss a ball from window to window across the street, were quite vacant, except for pigeons that flew in at the windows, or a cat that might be seen sleeping on a chair or window-ledge, or, perhaps, for a few hens searching for crumbs. The families were all out of doors. In one little corner portico sat a handsome woman, with her dark hair beautifully plaited, and a bright handkerchief laid over her massive shoulders. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she sat smiling, chatting with a neighbor now andthen, and enjoying a conscious queenship of the place. At either side of her was a young girl, slim, dark, and bright, a mere slip of the mother. These girls kept their eyes cast down, and appeared to think only of their knitting. On the next step was Carlin’s group. Further on, a young mother steadied her year-old child between her knees and a chair, while she darned a stocking. One perceived that the whole and snowy-white stockings worn even by the poorest were not kept in order without constant care and labor. Near by, an old woman with a distaff spun flax, and entertained a company of men with her lively talk. This antique goddess was, perhaps, the wit of the place. She was, however, in no manner allied to the graces; for the thin gray hair gathered tightly with a comb to the top of her head, and entirely uncovered, and the white kerchief knotted round her neck, instead of being draped in the becoming Italian fashion, showed that she had long since ceased to hold by even the shadow of a personal charm. Outside the door of a littlecafé, the only one in the place, half a dozen men sat at tables, drinking coffee and smoking, while on the door-step a man with a furnace and rotary stove, and a basket of charcoal beside him, roasted coffee to keep up the supply, lazily turning the crank while he listened to the gossip going on at the tables. On a neighboring step were gathered several women in a little sewing-circle. To these came a woman up the street, bearing on her head a tub covered over with nodding fern-leaves, which she set down on the wide top of the balustrade. The circle suspended their work while the woman displayed a sample of her wares—twelve frogsrun on to a stick. She was met with shrugs and exclamations of disapproval.
“Poor frogs!” said Isabel. “They look like little white babies.”
They were very poor little babies indeed, thin and small as spiders.
The frog-merchant, nothing disconcerted, laid aside her first sample and displayed another. “Oh! those are better,” the women cried, and immediately began to chaffer about the price.
Children swarmed everywhere. The close little town was as full of them as the shoe where the old woman we all know so well dwelt with her tribe of young ones. It did not need a powerful imagination to picture the place boiling over like a pot some day, with a many-colored froth ofbambinidown the mountain-side. It was out of the question that there should be room for the rising generation to stay in the town when they should have become a risen generation; for they were six or seven in a family, and already the houses were full.
“Perhaps one of them will go to America, and set up on some sidewalk a furnace for roasting chestnuts,” Bianca said. “And perhaps, some day, ten or fifteen years hence, we may stop and ask such a person what part of Italy he came from, and he will answer, ‘From Monte Compatri’; and we will say, ‘Ah! we have been there, at such a time; and perhaps it was you we saw playing inVia Lungaor in thepiazza?’ and he will brighten an instant, and then, all at once, begin to cry. And Isabel will almost cry for him, and will give him her best handkerchief to wipe his tears away, perhaps wiping them for him; and I will buy all his chestnuts, which will be cold by the time we get home, and papa will slip somemoney into his hand, and ask him if he wants work to do, and we will all tell him where we live, and to come to us if he should get into trouble. And then we will go home and talk for all the rest of the day about nothing but Italy, and that day we went up Monte Compatri. And Isabel will insist that she recognizes the fellow perfectly, and try to coax papa to take him for a gardener or something.”
“And then,” resumed Mr. Vane, continuing the story, “we shall have the lazy vagabond coming to us every day begging, and we shall miss things out of the room where he is left alone a few minutes, and Isabel will give him my clothes, till I shall have nothing left to wear.”
“Meantime, what will the Signora be doing?” that lady demanded, finding herself left out. “Is she to have no part?”
She did not see the pleasant glance that fell on her from the eyes of the gentleman at her side. She was looking down, a little hurt, she hardly knew why. For was it not a matter understood that her home was in Italy, and theirs in America?
“Why, you,” said Isabel—“you will be inCasa Ottant’Otto, thousands of miles away, and we shall be writing you all about it.”
“Not so!” Mr. Vane said. “She will be with us at the time, I think, and will correct all our mistakes, and reward all our well-doing with her approbation.”
“There, that sounds comfortable,” the lady said, smiling. “I was really feeling neglected and left out in the cold.”
They had come to the street that encircles the town, and on the outside of which a row of houses hangs on the mountain-edge. In one of these they were to spend the night, and, as she spoke, the Signora lookedup brightly, and beckoned some one in a window above to come down and open the door for them.
Mr. Vane spoke rather hastily in answer to her remark, and apparently for her ear alone. “If you should be outside, the cold will then be inside the circle,” he said. “It is you who are to choose.”
“Oh! thank you,” she replied lightly. “And now mind the steps. They are rather dark.”
The street from which they entered this house was so narrow, and the houses so joined, that they seemed to be still in the heart of the town; but when they had passed the dusky stairs, and entered the long, lowsalaat the head of them, they found the place like a nest in a tree-top. The mountain-side dropped sheer from under the very windows, and the view swept round from Rome and the sea to Palestrina and the mountains.
In thissalathe whole family of thepadronehad assembled to welcome and stare at the strangers before giving the room up to their use. A dozen or so smiling faces, full of good-will and curiosity, clustered about without the slightest sign of any thought that they might be intruding, or that there was to be any limit to the free use of their eyes. An old woman leaning on a cane muttered unintelligible blessings and made innumerable little bows right and left, a hale young matron talked and welcomed, a servant smiled unceasingly, a young girl with a baby in her arms asked abrupt questions in a loud voice, and children of all ages filled up the gaps.
The young ladies resigned their clothes to examination, and began shyly petting the little ones, and the Signora gave orders for their entertainment. While she was talking the servant and two of theboys ran skurrying out of the room and presently returned with an air of great pride, bearing in their hands beautiful white pigeons, which they caressed while displaying.
The young ladies admired them and smoothed their snowy plumage, without being in the least aware why they had been brought.
“They are for our dinner to-morrow,” the Signora remarked with great composure.
There was a little duet of dismayed exclamations. “I thought they were family pets!” Bianca said, recoiling.
“And so they are, my dear,” was the reply. “They pet them up to the moment of killing them, and praise while they are eating them. Their fondness never ceases. And now let us take off our bonnets and have supper.”
The room was long, low, and paved with coarse red bricks. The ceiling, crossed by several large beams, was papered in compartments representing squares of blue sky with light clouds floating over, and a bird or two here and there in the space, and the flowery walls were nearly hidden by great presses holding linen, by sideboards laden with dishes, and by the high backs of patriarchal old chairs, very picturesque to look at and very penitential to sit in.
All the centre of this room was taken up by a long table, at one end of which their supper was speedily prepared. There was bread, as good as could be had in Rome, and such a salad as could scarcely be had in any city, the oil as sweet as cream, and the lettuce so crisp and delicate that it could be almost powdered between the hands. Just as they sat down a large decanter of gold-colored wine, ice-cold from the grotto, was placed before them. For in these littleItalian towns, however they may lack the necessities of life, they are never without the luxuries.
They sat down merrily, only one of the family remaining to wait on them, the others hovering about the door, and watching the faces of their guests as they ate, to see how the food pleased them.
“Papa,” said Isabel, pointing to a plate before her, on which a small onion shone like silver, “do you recognize that vegetable?”
“I recognoseit,” replied Mr. Vane, who would sometimes play upon words.
“Well, I propose that we agree to divide it in four parts, each a little larger than the last, the largest for you, the smallest for Bianca, and that we all eat our portions, and so find no fault with each other.”
Bianca instantly declined the invitation, and blushed deeply when they rallied her on her daintiness.
“These onions are very delicate and sweet,” the Signora said. “I used to avoid them, till one day I received a call from a personage of the most dignified position and unexceptionable manners, from whose breath I perceived, in the course of the conversation, that he had been eating these little onions. But the faint odor that reached me as he spoke was as though a rose and an onion had been grafted together. Since then I have eaten without scruple.”
But Bianca still declined, still blushing. Why? Was it that her affection for the friend ever tenderly remembered had so consecrated her to him that nothing but what was sweetest and purest must touch where his image was enshrined, whether he were present or absent? She was quite extreme enough in her sensitive delicacy for such a thought.
Supper over, they went out into aloggiaattached to theirsalaand overhanging the steep mountainside, and watched the sun go down over the sea. The globe of fire had already touched the water-line, that by day showed only like a line of purple cloud, and kindled it to an intense lustre; and, as they looked, there was half a sun above the horizon, and another half visible as though seen through the transparent edge of the world over which it disappeared; then, without diminishing, it dropped out of sight, leaving an ineffable, silent glory over the scene. The fire of the sea faded to a faint gold, the rosy violet of the Campagna changed to a deep purple, and Earth, raising her shadowy hands, put aside the curtaining light of day, and looked out at the stars.
The sisters withdrew presently, and left the two elders to admire the beauties of nature at their leisure. Isabel, screened off in one corner of thesala, made voluminous notes of her experiences, and planned a wonderful story, into which they should all be woven. Seated on a footstool, with a brass lamp hanging to the back of a chair near her, and her writing on her knees, she saw one character after another emerge from the shades and take form and individuality before her eyes, as if they grew there independent of her will. They spoke and moved of themselves, and she only looked and listened. Now and then some trait, some feature, some word, was such as she had seen in real life, but these people were not portraits, though they might have such resemblances, and even might have been suggested by persons she had known. The shades grew more and more alive, gathering into substance. Stone walls built themselves up silently and with amore than Aladdin-like celerity, and gardens burst into instantaneous bloom. If she willed the sea present, its waves rolled up to her feet in foam, or caught and tossed her in their strong arms; if she called for forests, swiftly their darkening branches shut her in, and her light feet trod their dry, crackling twigs and rich, disordered flowers. The very accidents of a great pine-cone to stumble over, or an unexpected lizard running across the path, were there. The dull walls of the room she sat in, the rough bricks under her feet, the crowded town about her, were as though they were not. She was free of the world.
O precious gift of the magical lamp! which, at a touch, calls about its possessor all that men wish, and work, and strive for of earthly good, without the pain or responsibilities of earthly possession; which gives the rose without its thorn, the wine without its lees, the friend without the doubt, the triumph without disappointment! Happy they who, when what we call real life presses too hard or becomes too dull, can put it aside for the time, and enter a world of their own, for ever beautiful and satisfying, who, walking the common street, see things unseen of common eyes, and for whom many a beauty smiles under an ugly mask.
Bianca was in no such exalted mood of fancy, but, withdrawn to the chamber she was to occupy with the Signora, was lifting the holier eyes of faith, and, with childlike simplicity and confidence, laying all her heart open to God, sending up her petitions for earthly happiness on a cloud of the Acts, said after her own manner: “O my God! I believe in thee, I hope in thee, I love thee, I thank thee, and I am sorry for having offendedthee”; and then, as a thought or wish more earthly thrust itself forward, presenting it, unafraid and undoubting. Living and dead, friends and strangers, the poor, and those who had no one to pray for them—all were remembered by this tender heart; but ever, like the refrain of a song, came back the petition, “Bless, and guard from all ill of soul or body, him who is so much more to me than all other men, and, if it be thy will, give him to me for a friend and companion as long as I shall live.”
The two in the balcony, left to themselves, were talking quietly, having no mind to separate. The Signora found in the society of Mr. Vane a pleasure altogether new to her—the pleasure of being able to depend on some one. It was only now, when she was surrounded with a constant, friendly care, that she became aware how unprotected and unhelped her former life had been, and how sweet was that repose which the protected enjoy. Besides, Mr. Vane’s care was of a particularly agreeable kind. It did not, by watching and seizing on opportunities of serving, suggest the existence of an emotional care which might change to neglect, but was simply a calm readiness, which assumed, as a matter of course, that it should help when help was needed.
“I shall never be sufficiently thankful for having been led to make this European journey,” Mr. Vane said after a little silence. “It has done me good in many ways, and promises more even than it has performed as yet.”
“I am glad you say thankful instead of glad,” the Signora said, smiling. “Perhaps, too, I should say, I am thankful you say so.”
He thought a moment before speaking, and recollected that onlya few months before he would not have used the word. The change had come so gradually that he had scarcely been aware of it. “Yet I believe that I always recognize the Source from which all good flows,” he resumed seriously. “At least, I never denied it. Here religion is such a household affair, one falls after awhile into the habit of expressing what before was only felt, and felt, perhaps, unconsciously.”
“It is better so,” was the reply. “We strengthen a true feeling when we give it utterance. Besides, we may thus communicate it to others.”
“One of my causes of thankfulness,” he resumed, “is that my daughters should be associated with you. I wish you could make them more like yourself, and I am sure that their admiration and affection for you will lead them naturally to imitate you and to receive your instructions willingly. They have been to me a source of great anxiety, and I feel myself utterly incapable of directing them; for, while I wish them to be modest and womanly, on the one hand, I as certainly wish them to be capable of finding in life an object and a happiness which shall not depend on any other person. It would please me to see them well married; but God forbid that an unmarried life should be for them a disappointed life! What I could do for them I have done, but with an immense self-distrust; and I have felt safer when leaving them to themselves than when interfering or seeking to guide them.”
“I should think you had done well both in guiding and in leaving them free,” the lady replied. “Many parents do too much either one way or the other. Does not the result satisfy you so far?”
She was surprised at the emotionwith which he spoke, not knowing anything of his married life.
“The result is not yet. Everything depends on their marriage, or their reason for not marrying.” He hesitated, then went on, as if incapable of keeping silence longer on a subject of which he had never spoken: “The fate of their mother is to me a constant warning and a constant pain. In one respect I can save them from that; for I shall never urge them to marry, and shall never oppose any choice of theirs, unless it should be a manifestly bad one. But I cannot guard them from the tyranny of some mistaken sense of duty, or mistaken pride or delicacy which they might conceal from all the world.”
Startled by this half-revelation, his companion kept silence, waiting for him to speak. It was impossible he should not speak after such a beginning.
“I do not know which was the more deeply wronged, I or my poor Bianca,” he said presently. “It all came from the blundering coarseness of parents who overstepped, not their authority—for they never commanded her—but their power to influence, which, with one like her, was quite as strong. Their mistake has taught me to interfere and control less the gentle, silent one than the one who speaks her mind out clearly and loudly. I have always thought that the mother of my daughters had some preference which she never acknowledged. Often, more often than not, these preferences come to nothing and are soon forgotten; but not always. She did not wish to marry me, but she consented without hesitation, and I believed that the slight reserve would vanish with time. Perhaps she believed it too. Her conscience was as pure as snow. Shedid perfectly, with all her power, what she believed to be her duty. But that preoccupation, whether for another person or for a single life, was never vanquished. You have, perhaps, chased a butterfly when you were a child, beaten it with your hat from flower to flower, and at last imprisoned it under a glass; or you have caught a hummingbird that has strayed into your room, and flown from you as long as it had strength. Neither resisted when it was caught; but the down was brushed off the butterfly’s wings, and the bird was dead in your hand. My wife omitted nothing that a good will could accomplish. She was grateful for my efforts to make her happy; she was calm, and even cheerful; and I am sure that she never said to herself, even, that she was sorry for having married me. But the only beaming smile I ever saw on her face was when she knew that she was going to die.”
His voice trembled a little, and he stopped a moment, as if to steady it before going on.
“Was not I wronged too? Was not the unwilling jailer as unfortunate as the unwilling prisoner? I say nothing of my own personal disappointment, though that was great. The mutual confidence, the delightful companionship, the perfect union, to which I had looked forward, and which were my ideal of marriage—where were they? In place of them I never lost the feeling that I had a victim for ever at my side. I felt as if I had been unmanly and cruel; yet the fault was not mine. She gave herself to me in all that she could, yet she was never mine.”
He paused again; yet this time his voice trembled more in resuming than in leaving off his story.
“I rejoiced in her release; and Ilook forward to no future meeting with her that shall be different from that meeting which we are permitted to look forward to with all the good in heaven. If other husbands and wives expect some closer partnership in heaven, I neither expect nor wish it. I have resigned her absolutely and for ever. I do not think that I am morbid. You should know her peculiar character to understand well how I could be made to feel that crystal wall that always stood between us. I felt it so that I really believe, if the children were not demonstrative in their affection for me, I should not have the courage to show any fondness for them. I used, when they were little ones, to look at them sometimes with a kind of terror when I came home, to see if they would smile brightly, and run to me as if they were glad from the heart to see me. I always waited for them, and, thank God! they never failed me. Duty and submission are there, but a perfect affection makes them almost unnecessary.”
Finishing, he glanced for the first time at his companion, and saw that she was in tears.
“My dear friend!” he exclaimed, “how selfish I have been! Forgive me!”
“No,” she replied gently, wiping her eyes, “you are not selfish. It seems to me that you are one of the least selfish of men. I am glad you have confidence enough in me to tell me such a story, which, I can well believe, you seldom or never speak of. It is quite natural that you should confide it to some one, and you could not expect any one to hear it unmoved.”
What an exquisite moonlight covered the world, and made afairy-like, silvery day in the little balcony where the two sat! The air sparkled with it, and one tear still hanging to the Signora’s eyelashes shone like a diamond in its beams.
“You are the first person to whom I have ever spoken on this subject, and the only person to whom I could confide it,” Mr. Vane said. “Can you guess why, Signora?”
She looked at him with a startled glance and read his meaning, and, in the first astonishment and confusion, was utterly incapable of replying.
“Shall I tell you why?” he asked.
She rose hastily, blushing and distressed.
“Do not say any more!” she exclaimed, and was on the point of leaving him abruptly, but checked herself, and, turning in the open low window, held out her hand to him. “You have called me friend. Let us remain friends,” she said.
He touched the hand, and released it without a word, and they separated.
Half an hour afterward Bianca’s face peeped out into the moonlight. “Are you still here, papa?” she said, and went to him. “Good-night, dear.”
He embraced her gently, and echoed her good-night, but did not detain her a moment.
“What! papa romancing here all alone?” exclaimed Isabel in her turn. “It isn’t good for your complexion nor for your disposition. Late hours and too much thinking make one sad.”
“Therefore you should go to bed directly,” was his reply.
She kissed him merrily and left him alone.
TO BE CONTINUED.