Excerpt from The Lost Daughter: And Other Stories of the Heart The deep voice of the hermit, softened by emotion, mur mured gently in the infant's ear - for, young as it was, it was susceptible to the impression of human kindness - and it looked in his face and smiled. Has any sunbeam ever visited this darkened world of ours half so beautiful as the smile of infancy The little rose-leaf lips curling so delicately, the clear, translucent eye lighted up with such heavenly lustre, the soft, round cheek dimpling and smooth ing, and dimpling again, like the play of waters in the sun, while a tender, brooding sound issues from the dove like throat. How lovely, how touching this assemblage of infant charms! Father Angelo felt his very soul dis solving within him. How strange he looked, that tall, monklike, sublime old man, boldin g with such tender care, the frail, down-wrapped foundling 1 So absorbed was he in his novel emotions, he did not heed the Opening of a side door, or the entrance of a woman dressed in a peas ant's garb, evidently of a subordinate rank. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.