hin, colourless face. There were bronze glints in the sombre
clusters of her hair, and the eyelashes, long and coal black, made her
complexion appear still more pale.

"Mother is going to offer up a lot of candles in the church. She always
does when Nostromo has been away fighting. I shall have some to carry up
to the Chapel of the Madonna in the Cathedral."

She said all this quickly, with great assurance, in an animated,
penetrating voice. Then, giving her sister's shoulder a slight shake,
she added--

"And she will be made to carry one, too!"

"Why made?" inquired Giorgio, gravely. "Does she not want to?"

"She is timid," said Linda, with a little burst of laughter. "People
notice her fair hair as she goes along with us. They call out after
her, 'Look at the Rubia! Look at the Rubiacita!' They call out in the
streets. She is timid."

"And you? You are not timid--eh?" the father pronounced, slowly.

She tossed back all her dark hair.

"Nobody calls out after me."

Old Giorgio contemplated his children thoughtfully. There was two years
difference between them. They had been born to him late, years after
the boy had died. Had he lived he would have been nearly as old as Gian'
Battista--he whom the English called Nostromo; but as to his daughters,
the severity of his temper, his advancing age, his absorption in his
memories, had prevented his taking much notice of them. He loved his
children, but girls belong more to the mother, and much of his affection
had been expended in the worship and service of liberty.

When quite a youth he had deserted from a ship trading to La Plata, to
enlist in the navy of Montevideo, then under the command of Garibaldi.
Afterwards, in the Italian legion of the Republic struggling against the
encroaching tyranny of Rosas, he had taken part, on great plains, on the
banks of immense rivers, in the fiercest fighting perhaps the world had
ever known. He had lived amongst men who had declaimed about liberty,
suffered for liberty, died for liberty, with a desperate exaltation, and
with their eyes turned towards an oppressed Italy. His own enthusiasm
had been fed on scenes of carnage, on the examples of lofty devotion, on
the din of armed struggle, on the inflamed language of proclamations.
He had never parted from the chief of his choice--the fiery apostle of
independence--keeping by his side in America and in Italy till after
the fatal day of Aspromonte, when the treachery of kings, em