Santa Lucia!
Santa Lucia!"
… The notes grow fainter and fainter. Are the tall maidens of Capri already looking out for the swarthy sailors, that these turn no longer to the shores they are leaving? … "O dolce Napoli! O suol beato!" … Fainter and fainter grow the notes on the trembling string, so that you can scarcely tell them from the cool plashing of the fountains … "Santa Lucia! … Santa Lucia!". …
"Natalushka," said her father, laughing, "you must take us to Venice now."
The young Hungarian girl rose, and put the zither aside.
"It is an amusement for the children," she said.
She went to the piano, which was open, and took down a piece of music—it was Kucken's "Maid of Judah." Now, hitherto, George Brand had only heard her murmur a low, harmonious second to one or other of the airs she had been playing; and he was quite unprepared for the passion and fervor which her rich, deep, resonant, contralto voice threw into this wail of indignation and despair. This was the voice of a woman, not of a girl; and it was with the proud passion of a woman that she seemed to send this cry to Heaven for reparation, and justice, and revenge. And surely it was not only of the sorrows of the land of Judah she was thinking!—it was a wider cry—the cry of the oppressed, and the suffering, and the heart-broken in every clime—
"O blest native land! O fatherland mine!
How long for thy refuge in vain shall I pine?"
He could have believed there were tears in her eyes just then; but there were none, he knew, when she came to the fierce piteous appeal that followed—
"Where, where are thy proud sons, so lordly in might?
All mown down and fallen in blood-welling fight!
Thy cities are ruin, thy valleys lie waste,
Their summer enchantment the foe hath erased.
O blest native land! how long shalt decline?
When, when will the Lord cry, 'Revenge, it is Mine!'"
The zither speaks; but there is a speech beyond that of the zither. The penetrating vibration of this rich and pathetic voice was a thing not easily to be forgotten. When the two friends left the house, they found themselves in the chill darkness of an English night in February. Surely it must have seemed to them that they had been dwelling for a period in warmer climes, with gay colors, and warmth, and sweet sounds around them. They walked for some time in silence.
"Well," said Lord Evelyn, at last, "what do you think of them?"
"I don't know," said the other, after a pause. "I am puzzled. How did you come to know them?"
"I came to know Lind through a newspaper reporter called O'Halloran. I should like to introduce you to him too."
George Brand soon afterward parted from his friend, and walked away down to his silent rooms over the river. The streets were dark and deserted, and the air was still; yet there seemed somehow to be a tremulous, passionate, distant sound in the night. It was no tinkling "Santa Lucia" dying away over the blue seas in the south. It was no dull, sonorous bell, suggesting memories of the far Campagna. Was it not rather the quick, responsive echo that had involuntarily arisen in his own heart, when he heard Natalie Lind's thrilling voice pour forth that proud and indignant appeal,
"When, when will the Lord cry, 'Revenge, it is Mine!'"
CHAPTER IV.
A STRANGER.
Ferdinand Lind was in his study, busy with his morning letters. It was a nondescript little den, which he also used as library and smoking-room; its chief feature being a collection of portraits—a most heterogeneous assortment of engravings, photographs, woodcuts, and terra-cotta busts. Wherever the book-shelves ceased, these began; and as there were a great number of them, and as the room was small, Mr. Lind's friends or historical heroes sometimes came into odd juxtaposition. In any case, they formed a strange assemblage—Arndt and Korner; Stein; Silvio Pellico and Karl Sand cheek by jowl; Pestal, Comte, Cromwell, Garibaldi, Marx, Mazzini, Bem, Kossuth, Lassalle, and many another writer and fighter. A fine engraving of Napoleon as First Consul was hung over the mantel-piece, a pipe-rack intervening between it and a fac-simile of the warrant for the execution of Charles I.
Something in his correspondence had obviously annoyed the occupant of this little study. His brows were bent down, and he kept his foot nervously and impatiently tapping on the floor. When some one knocked, he said, "Come in!" almost angrily, though he must have known who was his visitor.
"Good-morning, papa!" said the tall Hungarian girl, coming into the room with a light step and a smile of welcome on her face.
"Good-morning, Natalie!" said he, without looking up. "I am busy this morning."
"Oh, but, papa," said she, going over, and stooping down and kissing him, "you must let me come and thank you for the flowers. They are more beautiful than ever this time."
"What flowers?" said he, impatiently.
"Why," she said, with a look of astonishment, "have you forgotten already? The flowers you always send for my birthday morning."
But instantly she changed her tone.
"Ah! I see. Good little children must not ask where the fairy gifts come from. There, I will not disturb you, papa."
She touched his shoulder caressingly as she passed.
"But thank you again, papa Santa Claus."
At breakfast, Ferdinand Lind seemed to have entirely recovered his good-humor.
"I had forgotten for the moment it was your birthday, Natalie," said he. "You are quite a grown woman now."
Nothing, however, was said about the flowers, though the beautiful basket stood on a side-table, filling the room with its perfume. After breakfast, Mr. Lind left for his office, his daughter setting about her domestic duties.
At twelve o'clock she was ready to go out for her accustomed morning walk. The pretty little Anneli, her companion on these excursions, was also ready; and together they set forth. They chatted frankly together in German—the ordinary relations between mistress and servant never having been properly established in this case. For one thing, they had been left to depend on each other's society during many a long evening in foreign towns, when Mr. Lind was away on his own business. For another, Natalie Lind had, somehow or other, and quite unaided, arrived at the daring conclusion that servants were human beings; and she had been taught to regard human beings as her brothers and sisters, some more fortunate than others, no doubt, but the least fortunate having the greatest claim on her.
"Fraulein," said the little Saxon maid, "it was I myself who took in the beautiful flowers that came for you this morning."
"Yes?"
"Yes, indeed; and I thought it was very strange for a lady to be out so early in the morning."
"A lady!" said Natalie Lind, with a quick surprise. "Not dressed all in black?"
"Yes, indeed, she was dressed all in black."
The girl was silent for a second or two. Then she said, with a smile,
"It is not right for my father to send me a black messenger on my birthday—it is not a good omen. And it was the same last year when we were in Paris; the concierge told me. Birthday gifts should come with a white fairy, you know, Anneli—all silver and bells."
"Fraulein,"