Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/248

Rh she glanced at the little fair wondering faces of the peasant children. She had never thought about children ever in any way, save as little figures that composed well in Stothard's drawings, in Sir Joshua's pictures, in Correggio's frescoes. Now, for a second, the thought glanced through her that women were happy who had those tender soft ties with the future of the world. What future had she?—You cannot make a future out of diamonds, china, and M. Worth.

"You really wish to buy the San Cipriano?" he asked her, as they passed over the worn, damp pavement towards the sunlight of the open door.

"Yes—you seem to think it sacrilege?"

"No; I think the moral decadence of feeling which makes it possible for my nation to sell such things is a sacrilege against our past, and a violation of the rights of our posterity;—but that is another matter, and no fault of yours. What will you do with it when you have it?"

"I will put it in my oratory in Paris."

The answer jarred on him; yet there was no other which he could have expected.

R