He did not. No one could be more unconscious of the effect produced by what was personal in his talk than Marion. If he sometimes appeared, while talking, almost to forget his company, it was not because he thought of himself, but because he was absorbed in his subject. He saw plainly before his eyes that which he described, and he made others see it. Bright, animated, varied, passing, not abruptly, but with the grace of a bird that
swims through the air, and alights for a moment, now here, now there, on a tree, a shrine, a house-top, a mountain-top, a window-ledge with an inside view, he carried his listeners along with him, charmed and unconscious of time. He knew that they were pleased, but gave the credit to the subject, and thought nothing of himself. He would have kept silent if he had believed he could be thought talking for effect.
The Signora stood a smiling and unseen listener to his description of his journey, and felt her sympathy and admiration increase every moment for the man who, in a hackneyed experience, had seen so much at every moment that was fresh and new, and, travelling the beaten ways of life, had found gems among the worn pebbles, had even broken the pebbles themselves, and revealed a precious color sparkling inside.
“If only he could find so much in worn and hackneyed people!” she thought. “If he could compel the cold, the conventional, and the mean to break the dull crust that has accumulated around the original nature of them, what a boon it would be! There must be something tolerable, perhaps a capacity for becoming even admirable, left in the lowest. I would like to have him point it out or call it out; for sometimes my charity fails.”
His recital finished, he stood an instant silent, looking down; then a swift glance probed the shadowed corner where the Signora stood, showing that he had all the while known she was there. It was not the inquisitive nor intrusive look of one who wishes to show a knowledge of what another has tried to hide from him, but a pleasant glance that sought her presence,
and begged her not to separate herself from them.
She came forward immediately, more pleased at the frank invitation than if he had pretended to be unaware of her presence.
“I feel bound, in honor, to declare my intentions to you, Signora,” he said; “for you may look on me as a foe when you know them, and it is but right you should have fair warning. I have been told that you are disposed to win this family for Rome, and I am equally disposed to keep them in America. I should despair of success in such a rivalry but that I believe I have right on my side. Is it peace or war?”
“Peace,” she replied. “I cannot war against right, and I ought not to wish against it. Moreover, since the family are the majority, and have free will, we can only try to influence, but must leave them to decide. I am sorry, though, that you distrust Rome so.”
“Oh! it is not that,” he said quickly, “though, indeed, I do distrust Rome for some people—or rather, I distrust some people for Rome. I have known cases of the most deplorable deterioration of character here in persons who were considered at home a little better than the average. But that was not my thought in this instance. I hope our friends will return to America for other reasons. No one should, it seems to me, expatriate himself without a sort of necessity. The native land assigned us by Providence would seem to be the theatre in which it is our duty to act, and one of the motives of our visits to other countries should be to enrich our own with whatever of good we may find there. Every country needs its children; but America particularly needs all her good citizens, and the church in America