The boys, who in rags that no tailor has darned or mended, clamber over the white vineyard walls, the little girls, whose mothers comb their hair before the doors of the houses, are not so pink and white, nor so nicely washed as the Holland children, but I should like to see again the brown-skinned, black-haired little ones with the dark eyes, and end my days amid all the clatter in the warm air, among my nephews, nieces and blood-relations." As he uttered these words, the old man's features had flushed and his black eyes sparkled with a fire, that but a short time before the northern air and his long years of servitude seemed to have extinguished.

Since neither the priest nor the musician answered immediately, he continued more quietly: "Monseigneur Gloria is going to Italy now, and I can accompany him to Rome as courier.

From thence I can easily reach Naples, and live there on the interest of my savings free from care.

My future master will leave on the 15th, and on the 12th I must be in Antwerp, where I am to meet him." The eyes of the priest and the musician met.

Wilhelm lacked courage to seek to withhold the steward from carrying out his plan, but Damianus summoned up his resolution, laid his hand on the old man's shoulder, and said: "If you wait here a few weeks more, Belotti, you will find the true rest, the peace of a good conscience.