"Look at me once more, sir," said Antonio, trying to steady his faltering voice, "and turn back a few pages in your life's history. Think of a little garden, and of an old lime-tree beneath whose leafy roof you often sat, while the sweet tones of an organ thrilled through the summer air."
The old man's eyes shone more brightly, and his lips trembled.
"Antonio!" he stammered out, "Antonio!" and his white head sank on the shoulder of his favourite pupil, who knelt before him with his arm wound in filial tenderness round the childless man.
"Oh, Antonio! I have lost my child to-day, only to-day. She would not let me go alone to the distant north, to which some luckless impulse drove me in my old age, and so she came with me on my toilsome journey. Today we struck on a hidden reef, and the same wave which dashed her against the dark rock drove me, despite my struggling, on this barren strand, though I would fain lie with my darling child below the waves."
The old man covered his face with his hands, and Antonio did not venture on any words of consolation.
"If I could even find her corpse," said the poor old man at last, "I could bury her at home; but even the sad consolation of visiting her grave is denied me."
"She has found a better resting-place than you could give her," said Antonio—"she sleeps on a golden bed; a coral grove surrounds the spot; corruption has no power over her fair features, and no worm can touch her. Amid noble companions she slumbers, while the sunbeams kiss her snowy eyelids, and the warm waters of the Gulf Stream flow gently over her."
"How do you know all this, Antonio?" asked the old man in astonishment.
And Antonio told him about that evening when he met the beautiful sea-fairy at this very rock, and descended with her into her ocean kingdom, there to live in forgetfulness of home and friends, until, awakened by what he had seen and felt to-day, the old memories acquired new power over him, and throbbed more strongly than ever in his soul.