blight, as his father has been ours! Will you not, my little Sunbeam?"

"Yes, papa--yes, papa!" lisped the little one.

"Pietro!" called his wife, "if you have done breakfast, come up.
Mother is awake and would see you."

"Coming, _carissima_!"

He kissed the baby girl, placed her on the pallet, and sprung lightly
up the steep stair.

The loft was just a shade less wretched than the apartment below.
There was a bed on the floor, more decently covered, two broken chairs,
a table with some medicine bottles and cups, and a white curtain on the
one poor window.

On the bed lay a woman, over whom Pietro bent reverently the moment he
entered the room. It was the wreck of a woman who, in the days gone
by, must have been gloriously beautiful; who was beautiful still,
despite the ravages years, sickness, and poverty had wrought.

The eyes that blazed brilliant and black were the eyes of Zara--the
eyes of the baby Sunbeam below--and this woman was the mother of one,
the grandmother of the other.

Pietro knelt by the pallet and tenderly kissed one transparent hand.
The great black eyes turned upon him wild and wide.

"Thou hast seen him, Pietro?" in a breathless sort of way. "Zara says