The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert | Page 8

oarsmen put about. "Tell Pietro," he said, "to feed the pigeons as usual. Tell him to lay crumbs on the balcony railing, and if the cock bird is too greedy, to drive him away and give the hen an opportunity. Come for me at nine."
"Thank you," said Lady Nora; "your poor are now provided for."
"Alas, no," said the cardinal; "my pigeons are my aristocratic acquaintance. They would leave me if I did not feed them. My real poor have two legs, like the pigeons, but God gave them no feathers. They are the misbegotten, the maladroit, the unlucky,--I stand by that word,-- the halt, the blind, those with consciences too tender to make their way, reduced gentlefolk, those who have given their lives for the public good and are now forgotten, all these are my poor, and they honor me by their acquaintance. My pigeons fly to my balcony. My poor never come near me. I am obliged, humbly, to go to them."
"Will money help?" exclaimed Lady Nora; "I have a balance at my banker's."
"No, no, my lady," said the cardinal; "money can no more buy off poverty than it can buy off the bubonic plague. Both are diseases. God sent them and He alone can abate them. At His next coming there will be strange sights. Some princes and some poor men will be astonished."
Just then, a woman, short, plump, red-cheeked and smiling, came toward them. She was no longer young, but she did not know it.
"Your eminence," said Lady Nora, "I present my aunt, Miss O'Kelly."
Miss O'Kelly sank so low that her skirts made what children call "a cheese" on the white deck.
"Your imminence," she said, slowly rising, "sure this is the proud day for Nora, the Tara, and meself."
"And for me, also," said the cardinal. "From now until nine o'clock I shall air my English speech, and I shall have two amiable and friendly critics to correct my mistakes."
"Ah, your imminence," laughed Miss O'Kelly, "I don't speak English. I speak County Clare."
"County Clare!" exclaimed the cardinal; "then you know Ennis? Fifty odd years ago there was a house, just out of the town of Ennis, with iron gates and a porter's lodge. The Blakes lived there."
"I was born in that house," said Miss O'Kelly. "It was draughty, but it always held a warm welcome."
"I do not remember the draught," said the cardinal, "but I do remember the welcome. When I was an undergraduate at Oxford, I made a little tour of Ireland, during a long vacation. I had letters from Rome. One of them was to the chapter at Ennis. A young priest took me to that house. I went back many times. There was a daughter and there were several strapping sons. The boys did nothing, that I could discover, but hunt and shoot. They were amiable, however. The daughter hunted, also, but she did many other things. She kept the house, she visited the poor, she sang Irish songs to perfection, and she flirted beyond compare. She had hair so black that I can give you no notion of its sheen; and eyes as blue as our Venetian skies. Her name was Nora--Nora Blake. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen--until yesterday."
"She was my mother!" exclaimed Miss O'Kelly.
"And my grandmother," said Lady Nora.
The cardinal drew a breath so sharp that it was almost a sob, then he took Lady Nora's hand.
"My child," he said, "I am an old man. I am threescore years and ten, and six more, and you bring back to me the happiest days of my youth. You are the image of Nora Blake, yes, her very image. I kiss the images of saints every day," he added, "why not this one?" and he bent and kissed Lady Nora's hand.
There was so much solemnity in the act that an awkward pause might have followed it had not Miss O'Kelly been Irish.
"Your imminence," she said, "since you've told us your age, I'll tell you mine. I'm two-and-twenty and I'm mighty tired of standin'. Let's go aft and have our tay."
They had taken but a few steps when Lady Nora, noticing the cardinal's limp, drew his arm through her own and supported him.
"I know the whole story," she whispered. "You loved my grandmother."
"Yes," said the cardinal, "but I was unworthy."

IV
They had their tea, two white-clad stewards serving them. The cardinal took a second cup and then rose and went to the side. He crumbled a biscuit along the rail.
"I have often wondered," he said, "if my pigeons come for me or for my crumbs. Nora Blake used to say that her poor were as glad to see her without a basket as with one. But she was a saint. She saw things more clearly than it is given to us to