I need not tell you, Signore, of the sons which God, by the intercession of the Virgin and blessed St.Anthony, was pleased to bestow on me, or of the manner in which he hath seen proper to take them one by one away." "Thou hast known sorrow, poor Antonio; I well remember thou hast suffered, too." "Signore, I have.

The deaths of five manly and honest sons is a blow to bring a groan from a rock.

But I have known how to bless God, and be thankful!" "Worthy fisherman, the Doge himself might envy this resignation.

It is often easier to endure the loss than the life of a child, Antonio!" "Signore, no boy of mine ever caused me grief, but the hour in which he died.

And even then"-- the old man turned aside to conceal the working of his features--"I struggled to remember from how much pain, and toil, and suffering they were removed to enjoy a more blessed state." The lip of the Signer Gradenigo quivered, and he moved to and fro with a quicker step.
"I think, Antonio," he said, "I think, honest Antonio, I had masses said for the souls of them all ?" "Signore, you had; St.Anthony remember the kindness in your own extremity! I was wrong in saying that the youths never gave me sorrow but in dying, for there is a pain the rich cannot know, in being too poor to buy a prayer for a dead child!" "Wilt thou have more masses?
Son of thine shall never want a voice with the saints, for the ease of his soul!" "I thank you, eccellenza, but I have faith in what has been done, and, more than all, in the mercy of God.