el to help my child. . . . O blind, O hard of faith that I
am! And when I lifted my eyes and saw you, I bethought me not that
none walk this mountain by the path you have come, nor has this land
any like you twain for beauty and stature. . . . O lady--whether from
heaven or earth--you will not take my child but to cure it? He is my
only one."

"Give him to me."

The woman laid her child in the Princess's arms and ran into the
house, throwing one look of terror back at us from the doorstep.
The Princess sat motionless, gazing down on the closed lids,
frowning, deep in thoughts I could not follow.

"You will not," said I, "leave this good foolish soul in her error?"

"I have heard," she answered quietly, without lifting her eyes, "that
a royal touch has virtue to heal sometimes--and there was a time when
you claimed to be King of Corsica. Nay, forgive me," she took
herself up quickly, "there is bitterness yet left in me, but that
speech shall be the last of it. . . . O husband, O my friend, I was
thinking that this child will grow into a man; and of what his mother
said, that there is such a thing as a good man: and I am trying to
believe her. . . . _Eccu!_ he sleeps, poor mite! Listen to his
breathing."

The farm-wife came out with a full bowl of milk. Her hands shook and
spilled some as she handed it to me, so eager were they to hold her
infant again. Taking it and feeling the damp sweat as she passed a
hand over its brow, she broke forth into blessings.

We told her of her mistake: but I doubt if she heard.

"I have dwelt here these three years," she persisted, "and none ever
walked the mountain by the path you have come." She watched us as I
held the bowl for the Princess to drink, and asked quaintly, "But is
there truly no marrying in heaven? I have thought upon that many
times, and always it puzzles me."

We said farewell to her, and took her blessings with us as she
watched us across the head of the ravine. Then followed another
half-hour of silence and sharp climbing: but the worst was over, and
by-and-by the range tailed off into a chain of lessening hills over
which in the purple distance rose a solitary sharp cone with a
ruinous castle upon it, which (said the Princess) was Seneca's Tower
at the head of the Vale of Luri.

We were now beyond the danger of the Genoese, and therefore turned
aside to the left and descended the slopes to the high-road, along
which we made good speed until, havin