Are
they singing, then, as they speed over the glancing waves?... "_O dolce
Napoli! O suol beato!_" ... for what can they sing at all, as they leave
us, if they do not sing the pretty, tender, tinkling "Santa Lucia?"
"Venite all' agile
Barchetta mia!
Santa Lucia!
Santa Lucia!"
... The notes grow fainter and fainter. Are the tall maidens of Capri
already looking out for the swarthy sailors, that these turn no longer
to the shores they are leaving?... "_O dolce Napoli! O suol beato!_" ...
Fainter and fainter grow the notes on the trembling string, so that you
can scarcely tell them from the cool plashing of the fountains ...
"_Santa Lucia!... Santa Lucia!_"....
"Natalushka," said her father, laughing, "you must take us to Venice
now."
The young Hungarian girl rose, and put the zither aside.
"It is an amusement for the children," she said.
She went to the piano, which was open, and took down a piece of
music--it was Kucken's "Maid of Judah." Now, hitherto, George Brand had
only heard her murmur a low, harmonious second to one or other of the
airs she had been playing; and he was quite unprepared for the passion
and fervor which her rich, deep, resonant, contralto voice threw into
this wail of indignation and despair.
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