CHAPTER X.


THE MADONNA AND CHILD.


"Pure and undimmed, thy angel smile
Is mirrored on my dreams,
Like evening's sunset girded isle,
Upon her shadowed streams;
And o'er my thoughts thy vision floats,
Like melody of spring-bird notes,
When the blue halcyon gently laves
His plumage in the flashing waves."

PARK BENJAMIN.


"Please, miss, a letter for you," said the post-boy, handing Natalie a
letter, which she was not long in discovering, was from her dear mother.

"I thank you, most heartily," said she, in her low, musical voice, which
caused the youthful sprig of Uncle Sam's department to leave incomplete
the angle of forty-five degrees, which he had been in the habit of
considering as of no little importance in the perfecting of his duties,
as he went his daily rounds.