Half-witted, they call him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy.

And I accept his aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him all! Ah! what a sin to stain his joyous nature with the blackness of a woe like mine!" She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as Donatello pressed it to his lips.

They were now about to emerge from the depth of the arch; but just then the kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of the shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam had been sitting.

There, as at the other shrines, he prayed, or seemed to pray.

It struck Kenyon, however,--who sat close by, and saw his face distinctly, that the suppliant was merely performing an enjoined penance, and without the penitence that ought to have given it effectual life.