the ship, and fierce fog and foam and drowning fell upon her capturers.
But they all believed, that, snatched from the wreck into islands of
Eastern archipelagoes, the vindictive child and her quieted gods might
yet be found. Of course my father knew this, and when that night in the
church he saw the girl saying such devout prayers on an amber rosary,
with a demure black slave so tiny and so old behind her, it flashed
back on him, and he would have spoken, if, just then, the ray had not
revealed the great painting, so that he forgot all about it, and when at
last he turned, they were gone. But my father had come back to America,
had sat down quietly in his elder brother's house, among the hills where
I am to live, and was thought to be a sedate young man and a good match,
till a freak took him that he must go back and find that girl in Italy.
How to do it, with no clue but an amber rosary? But do it he did,
stationing himself against a pillar in that identical church and
watching the worshippers, and not having long to wait before in she
came, with little Asian behind. Papa isn't in the least romantic; he is
one of those great fertilizing temperaments, golden hair and beard, and
hazel eyes, if you will. He's a splendid old fellow! It's absurd to
delight in one's father,--so bread-and-buttery,--but I can't help it.
He's far stronger than I; none of the little weak Italian traits that
streak me, like water in thick, syrupy wine. No,--he isn't in the least
romantic, but he says he was fated to this step, and could no more have
resisted than his heart could have refused to beat. When he spoke to the
devotee, little Asian made sundry belligerent demonstrations; but he
confronted her with the two words she had learned here, Willoughby and
the town's name. The dwarf became livid, seemed always after haunted by
a dreadful fear of him, pursued him with a rancorous hate, but could not
hinder his marriage. The Willoughbys are a cruel race. Her only revenge
was to take away the amber beads, which had long before been blessed
by the Pope for her young mistress, refusing herself to accompany my