She, when barely more than a child (a girl of sixteen), had followed him over the then luckless Italian fields--sacrificing as much for a cause that she held to be trivial, as he in the ardour of his half-fanatical worship.

Her theory was: "These Italians are in bondage, and since heaven permits it, there has been guilt.

By endurance they are strengthened, by suffering chastened; so let them endure and suffer." She would cleave to this view with many variations of pity.

Merthyr's experience was tolerant to the weaker vessel's young delight in power, which makes her sometimes, though sweet and merciful by nature, enunciate Hebraic severities oracularly.

He smiled, and was never weary of pointing out practical refutations.