"Only," said Ferdinand, "I wish they hadn't covered up the sea, for I
wanted a good look at it."

"The sea?" said the barge-woman, all of a shiver. Then she explained
that her two sons had been drowned in it. "Though, to be sure," said
she, "they died for your Majesty's honour, and, if God should give them
back to me, would do so again."

"For me?" exclaimed Sophia, opening her eyes very wide.

"Ay, to be sure, my dear. So it's no wonder--eh?--that I should love
you."


By the time they said good-bye to her and hurried back through the
orchard, a dew was gathering on the grass and a young moon had poised
herself above the apple-boughs. The birds here were silent; but high on
the stone terrace, when they reached it, a solitary one began to sing.
From the bright windows facing the terrace came the clatter of plates
and glasses, with loud outbursts of laughter. But this bird had chosen
his station beneath a dark window at the corner, and sang there unseen.
It was the nightingale.

They could not understand what he sang. "It is my window," whispered
Sophia, and began to weep in the darkness, without knowing why; for she
was not miserable in the least, but, on the contrary, very, very happy.
They listened, hand in hand, by a fountain on the terrace. Through the
windows they could see the Papal legate chatting at table with the King,
Sophia's father, and the Chancellor hobnobbing with the Cardinal