John hung his head and wrung his hands. "My God, my God!" he groaned.
"You should not blame yourself," Maria Dolores said in a low voice, while she bathed the child's forehead, and fanned her face. "Your intention was good, you could not foresee what has happened, and it may be for the best, after all,—it may strengthen her 'will to live,' which is the great thing, the doctor says."
She had spoken English, but Annunziata's next outcry was like a response.
"Oh, to live, to live—I want to live, to live Oh, let me live!"
But at other times her wandering thoughts took quite a different turn.
Gazing solemnly up into Maria Dolores' face, she said, "He does not even know her name, though he fears it may be Smitti. I thought it was Maria Dolores, but he fears it may be Smitti."
John looked out of the window, pretending not to hear, and praying, I expect, that Maria Dolores' eyes might be blinded and her counsel darkened. At the same time, (Heaven having sent me a laughing hero), I won't vouch that his shoulders didn't shake a little.
II
Apropos of their ignorance of each other's patronymics. ... One afternoon Maria Dolores was taking the air at the open door of the presbytery, when, to a mighty clattering of horses' hoofs, a big high-swung barouche came sweeping into the court-yard, described a bold half-circle, and abruptly drew up before her. In the barouche sat a big old lady, a big soft, humorous-eyed old lady, in cool crêpe-de-chine, cream-coloured, with beautiful white hair, a very gay light straw bonnet, and a much befurbelowed lavender-hued sunshade. Coachman and footman, bolt upright, stared straight before them, as rigid as if their liveries were of papier-maché. The horses, with a full sense of what they owed to appearances, fierily champed their bits, tossed their manes, and pawed the paving-stones. The old lady smiled upon Maria Dolores with a look of great friendliness and interest, softly bowed, and wished her, in a fine, warm, old high-bred voice, "Good afternoon."