I deemed my happiness perfect--with love, wealth, and friendship, what more could a man desire?
Yet another drop of honey was added to my cup of sweetness.

On the first morning of May, 1882, our child was born--a girl-babe, fair as one of the white anemones which at that season grew thickly in the woods surrounding out home.

They brought the little one to me in the shaded veranda where I sat at breakfast with Guido--a tiny, almost shapeless bundle, wrapped in soft cashmere and old lace.

I took the fragile thing in my arms with a tender reverence; it opened its eyes; they were large and dark like Nina's, and the light of a recent heaven seemed still to linger in their pure depths.

I kissed the little face; Guido did the same; and those clear, quiet eyes regarded us both with a strange half-inquiring solemnity.