Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/310

 How glad I am to see you here! I knew that you would arrive safely to a haven, because I have never known the Lord commence a miracle without accomplishing it; but I am well content to see you here. Poor child! It is a great thing however to have been the subject of a miracle!"

We must not believe he was the only one who characterised the event by this term, and that because he had read the legendary. ThoughoutThroughout [sic] the village, and the surrounding country, it was spoken of in no other terms, as long as its remembrance lasted; and to say truth, if we regard its attendant circumstances, it would be difficult to find another name for it.

He then approached his wife, who was employed in taking the kettle from off the fire, and said in a low voice, "Has all gone well?"

"Very well. I will tell you another time."

"Well, well, at your leisure."

When the dinner was ready, the mistress of the house made Lucy sit down with them at the table, and helping her to a wing of the chicken, entreated her to eat. The husband began to dilate with much animation on the events of the day; not without many interruptions from the children, who stood round the table eating their dinner, and who had seen too many extraordinary things to be satisfied with playing the part of mere listeners. He described the solemn ceremonies, and then recurred to the miraculous conversion; but that which had made the most impression on his mind, and of which he spoke the oftenest, was the sermon of the cardinal.

"To see him before the altar," said he, "a lord like him, to see him before the altar, as a simple curate"

"And that golden thing he had on his head," said one of the little girls.

"Hush, be quiet. When one thinks, I say, that a lord like him, a man so learned, who, as they say, has read all the books in the world, a thing which no one else has done, not even in Milan; when one thinks that he has adapted himself so to the comprehension of others, that every one understood him"

"I understood, I did," said the other little chatterer.