and above all, of Miss Nevil, made him shrink from them in horror.  Then his mind dwelt on his sister’s reproaches, and all the Corsican within him justified her appeal, and even intensified its bitterness.  One hope alone remained to him, in this battle between his conscience and his prejudices—­the hope that, on some pretext or other, he might pick a quarrel with one of the lawyer’s sons, and fight a duel with him.  The idea of killing the young man, either by a bullet or a sword-thrust reconciled his French and Corsican ideas.  This expedient adopted, he began to meditate means for its execution, and was feeling relieved already of a heavy burden, when other and gentler thoughts contributed still further to calm his feverish agitation.  Cicero, in his despair at the death of his daughter Tullia, forgot his sorrow when he mused over all the fine things he might say about it.  Mr. Shandy consoled himself by discourses of the same nature for the loss of his son.  Orso cooled his blood by thinking that he would depict his state of mind to Miss Nevil, and that such a picture could not fail to interest that fair lady deeply.

He was drawing near the village, from which he had unconsciously travelled a considerable distance, when he heard the voice of a little girl, who probably believed herself to be quite alone, singing in a path that ran along the edge of the maquis.  It was one of those slow, monotonous airs consecrated to funeral dirges, and the child was singing the words: 

     “And when my son shall see again the dwelling of his father,
     Give him that murdered father’s cross; show him my shirt blood-
     spattered.”

“What’s that you’re singing, child?” said Orso, in an angry voice, as he suddenly appeared before her.

“Is that you, Ors’ Anton’?” exclaimed the child, rather startled.  “It is Signorina Colomba’s song.”

“I forbid you to sing it!” said Orso, in a threatening voice.

The child kept turning her head this way and that, as though looking about for a way of escape, and she would certainly have run off had she not been held back by the necessity of taking care of a large bundle which lay on the grass, at her feet.

Orso felt ashamed of his own vehemence.  “What are you carrying there, little one?” said he, with all the gentleness he could muster.  And as Chilina hesitated, he lifted up the linen that was wrapped round the bundle, and saw it contained a loaf of bread and other food.

“To whom are you bringing the loaf, my dear?” he asked again.

“You know quite well, Ors’ Anton’:  to my uncle.”

“And isn’t your uncle a bandit?”

“At your service, Ors’ Anton’.”

“If you met the gendarmes, they would ask you where you were going. . . .”

“I should tell them,” the child replied, at once, “that I was taking food to the men from Lucca who were cutting down the maquis.”