Page:Idalia, by 'Ouida' volume 2.djvu/158

Rh gentle, so softened, so full of reverent sweetness. Filippo Fiesoli stooped over them in silence, pressing them in his own; he was an old man, very near his last years, as he had said, but perhaps in all the homage that had been lavished on her she had never had one heart more nobly and more purely hers than was that of the great age-worn patriot's. His voice was unsteady as his farewell was spoken.

"Death will take me, most likely, before I can ever look upon your face again; but my dying breath will be a prayer for you."

There was an infinite dignity, a sublime pathos, that were beyond all pity in the benediction; age had set its barrier of ice betwixt them, and the grave alone waited for him, but the love wherewith he loved her was very rare on earth.

Without another word he turned from her, and awoke his son. The young soldier sprang up alert and ready on the instant: he had often wakened thus with the Sicilian legions. As he saw Idalia, his beautiful Titian face flushed, his eyelids fell shyly as a girl's, he sank before her on one knee with the old grace of Venice, and touched the hem of her dress with his lips. She smiled at him, an