"Yes," he said, curtly, "Madama, as you call her, should have been here." "The little angel did not once ask for her," murmured Assunta.
"True!" he answered.

And again there was silence.

We stood round the small bed, looking at the empty casket that had held the lost jewel--the flawless pearl of innocent childhood that had gone, according to a graceful superstition, to ornament the festal robes of the Madonna as she walked in all her majesty through heaven.

A profound grief was at my heart--mingled with a sense of mysterious and awful satisfaction.

I felt, not as though I had lost my child, but had rather gained her to be more entirely mine than ever.