Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 1).djvu/92

 into the lustrous silent depths where it had its being.

The child's desire to set all things free gave often a sharp pang to Joconda's heart.

'What would she say if she knew of her father on those rocks up yonder?' she would mutter now and then to the Priore, who would answer: 'There is no reason that she should ever know of him. It could do no good. She would think him a hero, as Maremma has done.'

'She would try to set him free, too, if she swam all night and all day to reach him,' said Joconda.

And as she grew older, and age with its many infirmities made her weaker both in brain and body, she began to be afraid, nervously afraid—calm, strong woman though she was—that anyone or anything should ever tell the child of that galley-slave at Gorgona.

No one did, and the child but rarely wondered whence she came; she took existence as a matter of course, like all ignorant creatures; it was no stranger that she should be alive than that the fish should be so in the water and the birds in the air. Culture