“There was such a record,” said Tito, “but it was lost, like everything else, in the shipwreck I suffered below Ancona. The only record left is such as remains in our—in my memory.”
“You must lose no time in committing it to paper, young man,” said Bardo, with growing interest. “Doubtless you remember much, if you aided in transcription; for when I was your age, words wrought themselves into my mind as if they had been fixed by the tool of the graver; wherefore I constantly marvel at the capriciousness of my daughter’s memory, which grasps certain objects with tenacity, and lets fall all those minutiae whereon depends accuracy, the very soul of scholarship. But I apprehend no such danger with you, young man, if your will has seconded the advantages of your training.”
When Bardo made this reference to his daughter, Tito ventured to turn his eyes towards her, and at the accusation against her memory his face broke into its brightest smile, which was reflected as inevitably as sudden sunbeams in Romola’s. Conceive the soothing delight of that smile to her! Romola had never dreamed that there was a scholar in the world who would smile at a deficiency for which she was constantly made to feel herself a culprit. It was like the dawn of a new sense to her—the sense of comradeship. They did not look away from each other immediately, as if the smile had been a stolen one; they looked and smiled with frank enjoyment.
“She is not really so cold and proud,” thought Tito.
“Does he forget too, I wonder?” thought Romola, “Yet I hope not, else he will vex my father.”
But Tito was obliged to turn away, and answer Bardo’s question.
“I have had much practice in transcription,” he said; “but in the case of inscriptions copied in memorable scenes, rendered doubly impressive by