Ah! well, even the flowers one loves best
are bespattered in the mire, and soiled by the skirts of mortals with
not too clean a record, and the pure snow-flake as it falls goes down
with smut from the chimney upon it, it is only the trail of the
serpent which is over all."
"The wells of pity in your eyes are deep and full enough to take in
more than the Dying Gladiator; he is dead; there are living men," said
the Irishman with the susceptibility of his race.
"Why, Sir Knight of Erin," said Vaura gaily, as she turned from the
painting, "you are not going to ask me to weep over all suffering
humanity, from the Pole, not North but Siberian; the Sultan, whose
siesta, is disturbed by the call to arms; to your own Pat with his
real or imaginary wrongs."
"To the shades of oblivion with Pat and the Pole,--they don't fill the
world."
"And in the meantime the shades of evening will be upon us if we don't
hasten. Pedro, you will send my purchases with the vases and model of
St. Peter's Lady Esmondet bought yesterday, to the Villa Iberia, and
be expeditious, as the servants are now packing our belongings for
England.
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