Poor Shelley! But I do not like the inscription, Clara; or rather, I do not like such an expression on such a grave.
“What do you mean, dear Assunta?” said Mrs. Grey, looking at her as if she were talking Sanscrit. “I think it is lovely. Cor cordium—the heart of hearts, is it not? I am sure nothing could be more appropriate.”
“It does not seem to me appropriate,” answered Assunta; “but then you know I always do have strange ideas—so you say. Why should Cor cordium be written over the ashes of one who was burned in true pagan fashion, and who, as I think, should rather be pitied for what he did not do, with [pg 783] his marvellous gifts, than loved for anything he has done?”
As she paused, a voice beside her exclaimed, “I am sure I cannot be mistaken. Is not this Miss Howard?”
Assunta turned and welcomed with a pleased surprise the young man who appeared so unexpectedly, then she presented him to her companions as Mr. Percival, of Baltimore, the brother of her only intimate school friend. He was tall and slender, not handsome, but with a manly and at the same time spiritual face. His eyes were his finest feature, but their beauty was rather that of the soul speaking through them. Assunta had not seen him since her school days at the convent, and then she had known him but slightly; so she was herself surprised at her ready recognition of him.
“And what has brought you so far away from my dear Mary?” she asked after the first greetings were over.
“I am on that most unenviable of expeditions—health-seeking,” was his reply. “After graduating at college, the physician doomed me to a year of travel; and so we meet again at Shelley's grave!”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Grey, “and Assunta and I were in the midst of an amiable quarrel when you found us out. I engage you on my side, Mr. Percival. It is about the inscription, which I like and Assunta does not, for reasons which are Greek to me.”
“I was just going to say,” said Assunta, “that Cor cordium seemed to me a sacred phrase wholly misapplied, though I have no doubt the irreverence was unintentional.” And turning to Mr. Percival with that sort of spiritual instinct which teaches us where to look for sympathy even in a crowd, she continued:
“I hope that I am not guilty of the same want of reverence in thinking that if those words are to be inscribed on any grave, they should be written upon that stone which was rolled against the opening of the new sepulchre in the garden, and sealed with the Roman seal; for there the true Cor cordium was enclosed.”