I have ever found thy soul the softest after holy music.
Who knows but the mercy of God may one day touch it through the notes of
this very hymn!"
Ghita paused a moment, and then her light fingers passed over the
strings of her guitar in a solemn symphony; after which came the sweet
strains of "Ave Maria," in a voice and melody that might, in sooth, have
touched a heart of stone. Ghita, a Neapolitan by birth, had all her
country's love for music; and she had caught some of the science that
seems to pervade nations in that part of the world. Nature had endowed
her with one of the most touching voices of her sex; one less powerful
than mellow and sweet; and she never used it in a religious office
without its becoming tremulous and eloquent with feeling. While she was
now singing this well-known hymn, a holy hope pervaded her moral system,
that, in some miraculous manner, she might become the agent of turning
Raoul to the love and worship of God; and the feeling communicated
itself to her execution. Never before had she sung so well; as a proof
of which Ithuel left his knight-head and came aft to listen, while the
two French mariners on watch temporarily forgot their duty, in entranced
attention.
"If anything could make me a believer, Ghita," murmured Raoul, when the
last strain had died on the lips of his beloved, "it would be to listen
to thy melody! What now, Monsieur Etooell! are you, too, a lover of
holy music?"
"This is rare singing, Captain Rule; but we have different business on
hand.
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