or his people. His great
sorrow was not, you understand, that he felt that his life was
going, but to see himself fleeing his country, which still had need
of him, and for which he had, in a few years, worn out the
measureless forces of his miraculous organism. He died with the
battle-cry in his throat, and his death was as great as his life.
Now reflect a little, Enrico, what sort of a thing is our labor,
which nevertheless so weighs us down; what are our griefs, our
death itself, in the face of the toils, the terrible anxieties, the
tremendous agonies of these men upon whose hearts rests a world!
Think of this, my son, when you pass before that marble image, and
say to it, "Glory!" in your heart.

THY FATHER.

APRIL.

SPRING.

Saturday, 1st.

THE first of April! Only three months more! This has been one of the
most beautiful mornings of the year. I was happy in school because
Coretti told me to come day after to-morrow to see the king make his
entrance with his father, _who knows him_, and because my mother had
promised to take me the same day to visit the Infant Asylum in the Corso
Valdocco. I was pleased, too, because the little mason is better, and
because the teacher said to my father yesterday evening as he was
passing, "He is doing well; he is doing well."

And then it was a beautiful spring morning. From the school windows we
could see the blue sky, the trees of the garden all covered with buds,
and the wide-open windows of the houses, with their boxes and vases
already growing green. The master did not laugh, because he never
laughs; but he was in a good humor, so that that perpendicular wrinkle
hardly ever appeared on his brow; and he explained a problem on the
blackboard, and jested. And it was plain that he felt a pleasure in
breathing the air of the gardens which entered through the open window,
redolent with the fresh odor of earth and leaves, which suggested
thoughts of country rambles.

While he was explaining, we could hear in a neighboring street a
blacksmith hammering on his anvil, and in the house opposite, a woman
singing to lull her baby to sleep; far away, in the Cernaia barracks,
the trumpets were sounding. Every one appeared pleased, even Stardi. At
a certain moment the blacksmith began to hammer more vigorously, the
woman to sing more loudly. The master paused and lent an ear. Then he
said, slowly, as he gazed out