A white marble cross was raised at one end of the mound;
the short Latin inscription on it signified--'PRAY FOR THE DEAD'.
The sunlight was shining calmly over the grave, and over Numerian and
Antonina as they sat by it. Sometimes when the mirth grew louder at the
rustic festival, it reached them in faint, subdued notes; sometimes they
heard the voices of the labourers in the neighbouring fields talking to
each other at their work; but, besides these, no other sounds were loud
enough to be distinguished. There was still and expression of the
melancholy and feebleness that grief and suffering leave behind them on
the countenances of the father and daughter; but resignation and peace
appeared there as well--resignation that was perfected by the hard
teaching of woe, and peach that was purer for being imparted from the
one to the other, like the strong and deathless love from which it grew.
There was something now in the look and attitude of the girl, as she sat
thinking of the young warrior who had died in her defence and for her
love, and training the shrubs to grow closer round the grave, which,
changed though she was, recalled in a different form the old poetry and
tranquillity of her existence when we first saw her singing to the music
of her lute in the garden on the Pincian Hill.
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