nna.
Resolving on a sudden that the object of my love should be the object
of adoration to thousands, born and unborn, I swept my brush across
the maternal face, and left a blank in heaven. The little girl
screamed; I pressed her to my bosom.

_Eugenius._ In the chapel?

_Filippo._ I knew not where I was; I thought I was in Paradise.

_Eugenius._ If it was not in the chapel, the sin is venial. But a
brush against a Madonna's mouth is worse than a beard against her
votary's.

_Filippo._ I thought so too, Holy Father!

_Eugenius._ Thou sayest thou hast forty zecchins; I will try in due
season to add forty more. The fisherman must not venture to measure
forces with the pirate. Farewell! I pray God my son Filippo, to have
thee alway in His holy keeping.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] Little boys, wearing clerical habits, are often called _abbati_.

TASSO AND CORNELIA

_Tasso._ She is dead, Cornelia! she is dead!

_Cornelia._ Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years of separation
do I bend once more your beloved head to my embrace?

_Tasso._ She is dead!

_Cornelia._ Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and most
unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven, so bewilders you?

_Tasso._ Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her.

_Cornelia._ Certainly it was a sad event; and they who are out of
spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of
the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent.

_Tasso._ How! What is this?

_Cornelia._ The little girl was crushed, they say, by a wheel of the
car laden with grapes, as she held out a handful of vine-leaves to one
of the oxen. And did you happen to be there at the moment?

_Tasso._ So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the
indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child! She was kind-hearted, else never
would calamity have befallen her.

_Cornelia._ I wish you had not seen the accident.

_Tasso._ I see it? I? I saw it not. No other is crushed where I am.
The little girl died for her kindness! Natural death!

_Cornelia._ Be calm, be composed, my brother!

_Tasso._ You would not require me to be composed or calm if you
comprehended a thousandth part of my sufferings.

_Cornelia._ Peace! peace! we know them all.

_Tasso._ Who has dared to name them? Imprisonment, derision, madness.

_Cornelia._ Hush! sweet Torquato! If ever these existed, they are
past.

_Tasso._ You do think they are sufferings? ay?

_Cornelia._ Too surely.

_