Blackbirds
piped and answered one another.
Taken with a sudden fancy, Delfina exclaimed, 'Mamma, I want the wreath
again.'
'No, leave it there--why should you take it away?'
'I want it for Muriella.'
'But Muriella will spoil it.'
'Do, please, give it me.'
Donna Maria looked at Andrea. He slowly went up to the statue, lifted
the wreath and handed it to Delfina. In the exaltation of their spirits,
this simple little episode had all the mysterious significance of an
allegory--was in some way symbolical. One of his own lines ran
persistently in Andrea's head--
'Have I attained, have I then paid the price?'
The nearer they approached the end of the pathway, the fiercer grew the
pain at his heart; he would have given half his life for a word from the
woman he loved. A dozen times she seemed on the point of speaking, but
she did not.
'Look, mamma, there are Fernandino and Muriella and Ricardo,' cried
Delfina, catching sight of Francesca's children; and she started off
running towards them and waving her wreath.
'Muriella! Muriella! Muriella!'
CHAPTER V
Maria Ferres had always remained faithful to her girlhood's habit of
setting down daily in her journal the passing thoughts, the joys, the
sorrows, the fancies, the doubts, the aspirations, the regrets and the
hopes--all the events of her spiritual life as well as the various
incidents of her outward existence, compiling thereby a sort of
Itinerary of the Soul which she liked occasionally to study, both for
guidance on the path still to be pursued and also to follow the traces
of things long dead and forgotten.
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