It is hard work, _O bella
donna_, on such a farm as ours, and doubly hard on my husband now for
these months that I have been able to help him but little. But with
a good man and his child--if God spare the child--I shall want no
happiness."
"Give me the child," said the Princess, taking a seat on the stone
slab beside her. "He shall not hurt with me while you fetch us a
draught of milk."
The woman stared at her and at me, fearfully at first, then with a
strange look in her eyes, between awe and disbelief and a growing
hope.
"Even when you came," she said hoarsely after a while, "I was praying
for an angel to help my child. . . . O blind, O hard of faith that I
am! And when I lifted my eyes and saw you, I bethought me not that
none walk this mountain by the path you have come, nor has this land
any like you twain for beauty and stature. . . . O lady--whether from
heaven or earth--you will not take my child but to cure it? He is my
only one."
"Give him to me."
The woman laid her child in the Princess's arms and ran into the
house, throwing one look of terror back at us from the doorstep.
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