"How naturally you take to one another," she said, letting down the black masses of her hair, and beginning to disentangle the braids with her fingers, as if the pure eyes of her guest had reproached their untidy state. "When I was a little girl, we had plenty of wild roses in a swamp near the house. It is strange, I have not thought of them in ten years; but when I saw you and the child sitting there together, it seemed as if I could reach out my hands and fill them."
Julia did not answer; her eyes were bent on the child, who had ceased to cry, and lay quietly in her arms—so quietly that she could detect a drowsy mist stealing over his eyes. The woman went on threading out her long hair in silence. After awhile Julia, who had been watching the soft, brown eyes of the child as the white lids dropped over them gradually like the closing petals of a flower, looked up with a smile, so pure, so bright, that the woman unconsciously smiled also.
"He is sound asleep," said the young girl, putting back the moist curls from his forehead. "See what a smile, I have been watching it deepen on his face since his eyes began to close."
The woman put back her hair with both hands, and turned her eyes with a sort of stern mournfulness upon the sleeping boy.
"He never goes to sleep on my bosom like that," she said, at last, with a bitter smile, and more bitter tone. "How could he? My heart beats sometimes loud enough to scare myself; I wonder if wild flowers really do blossom over Mount Etna? If they do, why should not my own child rest over my own heart?"
"My grandfather has told me that flowers do grow around volcanoes," said Julia, with a soft smile, "but it is because the fire never reaches them; if scorched once they would perish!"
"And my heart scorches everything near it. Is that what you mean?" said the woman, with a degree of mildness that was peculiarly impressive in a voice usually so stern and loud.
"When you were angry to-day, he trembled; when you wept he kissed you," answered the gentle girl, looking mildly into the dark face of her companion, whose fierce nature yielded both respect and attention to the moral courage that spoke from those young lips.
"Well, what if I do frighten him? We love that best which we fear most. It is human nature; at any rate it was my nature, and should be my child's," said the woman, striving to cast off the influence of which she was becoming ashamed.
"And did you ever fear any one?"