"'When he had come to his senses, and saw by his bedside the old woman (who had given him some strengthening drops), he said--after fixing for a long while a melancholy gaze upon her--in a hollow voice, sustained with difficulty:
"'"You are with me, Margareta! That is well. Where should I find a more faithful nurse? Oh! forgive me, mother, that I--a weak, foolish boy--should have doubted, even for a moment, what you revealed to me. Yes, yes! you are that Margareta who nursed me. I always knew that it was so. But the Devil confused my thoughts. I have seen her--it was she--it was she! I told you that there was some dark spell within me, controlling me in a manner that I could not comprehend. It has come gleaming out of the darkness now, with noonday brilliance, to annihilate me, in nameless rapture. I know all now--everything! Was not Bertuccio Nenolo my foster-father, who brought me up at a country house near Treviso?"
"'"Ah, yes!" she said; "Bertuccio Nenolo it was, the grand sea-hero, whom the ocean swallowed, just as he thought to place the laurel-wreath on his brow."
"'"Do not interrupt me," he continued. "Hear me patiently out. Things went well with me while I lived with Bertuccio Nenolo. I wore fine clothes. Whenever I was hungry, the table was always laid. When I had said my three little prayers, I might go out and roam about in the woods and meadows as I chose. Close to the house there was a dark wood of pines, full of perfume and music. I lay down there one evening, as the sun was sinking, weary with running about, under a great tree, and gazed up at the blue sky. Whether it was the earthy scent of the herbs that was the cause I do not know, but my eyes closed, and I sunk into a dreamy reverie, from which I was roused by the sound of something striking the ground close beside me, in the grass. I started up. A child, with the face of an angel, was standing beside me. She looked down upon me with a heavenly smile, and said in a sweet voice--
"'"How softly and quietly you were sleeping, you dear boy; and yet death was very near to you--a horrible death."
"'"Close to my breast I saw a small black snake, with its head shattered. The girl had killed it with the branch of a nut tree just as it was going to strike at me. I trembled, in a delicious awe. I knew that angels often came from Heaven to rescue human beings from the attacks of enemies. I fell on my knees. I raised my clasped hands. "Ah! you are an angel," I cried, "whom the Lord hath sent to deliver me from death! "The beautiful creature stretched her arms to me, and whispered, with rosy blushes suffusing her cheeks--
"'"No, you dear boy! I am not an angel. I am only a girl--a child, like yourself."
"'"My reverential awe passed into unspeakable rapture. I rose; we clasped each other in our arms; we pressed our lips upon each other's, speechless, weeping, sobbing, in delicious, nameless pain. A voice, clear as silver, culled through the trees, 'Annunziata! Annunziata!'
"'"I must leave you now, you darling boy; my mother is calling me," whispered the girl. An unspeakable pain pierced my heart.
"'"Oh, I do so love you!" I sobbed out, while the girl's hot tears fell burning on my cheeks.