Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/184

 she thought; 'and he would like to sell me his ricketty great-grandson that shakes with ague like a jelly-fish in a lobster-pot!'

The smile faded as she laid herself down to sleep; she knew all the niggardly self-seeking ways of the people, and had diverted herself with them through all the silent years of her life on these shores; but they were sorry neighbours to whom to leave a solitary child for care and for mercy.

'Well, the good God will be with her,' sighed Joconda in the formula of her faith. But she was a woman whom a formula could but half console.

Deity at his best was very far away, and always silent.

She would gladly have had those pieces under the pavement more by a hundredfold.

She glanced wistfully at the figure of the girl ere she put out her light, as Musa lay on the rough bed scarcely covered, with her slender straight round limbs glistening like some golden-hued marble, and her head hung downward in deep rest, as a flower hangs when full of dew.

She thought once of her own people, but she knew nothing about them. More than sixty years had gone by since she had come