'Welcome, dear cousin Basil,' was her greeting. 'We hoped this time
of gladness would turn your thoughts to us. My husband has been
called forth; but you will await his return?'
'It was you, lady cousin, whom I wished to see,' Basil replied. As
he spoke, he touched the curly head of the boy, who looked up at him
with large, grave eyes. 'Why is he so pale?'
'He has had a sickness,' answered the mother, in a low, tender
voice. 'Not many days ago, one might have feared he would be taken
from us. Our prayers prevailed, thanks to the intercession of the
holy Cosma and Damian, and of the blessed Theodore. When he seemed
to be dying, I bore him to the church in the Velabrum, and laid him
before the altar; and scarcely had I finished my prayer, when a
light seemed to shine upon his face, and he knew me again, and
smiled at me.'
Listening, the child took his mother's hand, and pressed it against
his wan little cheek. Then Silvia rang a bell that was beside her,
and a woman came to take the child away, he, as he walked in silence
from the room, looking back and smiling wistfully.
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