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Page 52
"I don't wonder this view has made you speechless," her friends called
out. "It is simply glorious."
"Yes," said the padre: "on these cliffs we seem on the brink of
eternity; down there among the morasses of the Maremma man cannot stay
his feet; and beyond is the sea."
"How beautiful the thought," said Julia, "that good men dying here have
no longer need to stay their feet! One step from these cliffs, and they
must be in heaven."
"Who knows, who knows," sighed the padre, "if any of us have found it
so? But now let us go to the library."
The signora followed them, since she could not do otherwise. They
stopped before the carved door, which the padre said was undoubtedly Fra
Giovanni's own work, and he pointed out the details of the beautiful
workmanship. At length he opened the door, which the signora felt sure
she had not closed. One glance around the hall showed her it was empty.
The padre was too much occupied with his emotions over the
scantily-supplied shelves, and the ladies with their surprise and
admiration, to notice her excited condition, which she at length
succeeded in quieting enough to hear the padre say, "They have taken our
precious manuscripts from us, dating as far back as the eleventh
century. Many of our order had spent their lives translating and copying
manuscripts, and our greatest loss is here. Fra Lorenzo is just now
translating some Latin chronicles of our first history into Italian. You
can see by his beautiful handwriting that he is a worthy disciple of his
learned predecessors. But how is this?"--as he searched among the rolls
of yellow parchment. "I see he has not yet commenced it." The old man
looked troubled, and, turning from the table, went on: "These carved
depositories for the choral-books, and the frescos at the head of the
stairs, are about all you can admire here now, except the architecture
of the hall."
The padre was very silent at dinner. He only said, noticing that the
signora ate nothing, "This will not do, my daughter. You look ill. You
must eat something, or I shall have two patients on my hands."
"Who is the other?" asked Margaret and Julia in a breath.
"Fra Lorenzo."
The signora longed to speak with him in private. She must go away at
once, but she must speak with him before she said anything to her
friends. All the afternoon she watched for an opportunity, but found
none. At length, when it was growing dark, she went to walk in the
corridor, hoping to meet him. She had come to the open gallery looking
into the cloister. Here she would wait for him; and, leaning against the
open-work railing, she looked down. A white figure was walking to and
fro. Finally it came to the well and looked into it. Now another white
figure emerged from the shadows, and, laying an arm around the first,
led it gently away out of sight. Then her overstrained nerves gave way,
and she fainted.
When she recovered her senses she found herself in bed. The padre and
her friends were talking in whispers in the next room, but the former's
voice came to her distinctly. He was saying, "Now you know all. You must
take her away as soon as possible."
A year after, in Naples, the ladies received these few lines from the
padre: "God in his infinite mercy has taken my son to himself."
KATE JOHNSTON MATSON.
THE SUBSTITUTE.
CHARACTERS.
MR. NATHANIEL NOKES, _a Retired Wine-Merchant_.
MR. CHARLES NOKES, _his Nephew_.
MR. ROBINSON, MR. SPONGE, MR. RASPER, _Friends of Mr. Nokes the Elder_.
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