Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/121

 paint the charm, the magic, in her conversation. I have not described her person, for I could not, her mind was more heavenly than her eye, its expressions more delicately varying than the bloom on her cheek; there was meekness attendant upon power, softness upon strength.

If she had not left me for a moment, I might have been spared much guilt; but the sickness of a near relation was a call she could not resist. I had often followed her, when masked, she attended upon the sick in the hospitals. It is an Italian custom: often have I, disguised in the covering gown of the Misericordia, stood by her, whom it was impossible not to recognize. The dying called for her, though they knew her not; they soon distinguished her powerful tones which pierced through the bond of grief around the most withered heart, and poured upon it those precious consolations afforded by her religion. Her manner, her voice, her gestures, seemed at such moments to be