Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-04-01
A PORPHYRY CASKET.

ject which has excited the curiosity of all
who have seen it. It is a small porphyry
casket. oblong in shape and fastened with
chased gold bands. It was made, it is
said, al the signora's order by one of the
most famous artists in Rome and is no less
quaint in design than exquisite in finish.
On one side, cut into the stone, is the sin
gle word amor, and a date.
For what purpose it was made, what it
contains and why it is placed in the shrine
as if it were sacred relic, few or none of
the signora's acquaintance know She
has been asked these questions many
times, and her only reply is, Something
more valuable to me than all my other
possessions put together" and the signora
is very rich woman.
She has never been known to open the
casket, and indeed it is so banded and
bolted together that it would require ex-
traordinary effort to break it apart. No
one is allowed to touch it, The signora
dusts and cares for it with her own hands,
and it has been observed that at such times
her ordinarily naughty air gives place to
one of mournful humility, mingled with
almost religious reverence.
This is the story of the porphyry casket.
The gossips of society said that Olivia
Anfiedi had resolved either to marry into
royal family or die single. Sons of noble
Roman families, merchant princes, foreign
ambassadors, diplomats and soldiers had
sued for her favor and failed. She had re-
fused offers the very thought of which
had embittered the soul of many a Roman
beauty with the gall of envy. For all the
emotion she had exhibited at the passion
ate pleading of her suitors she might have
| been statue of ice.
She was the only daughter of an ancient
ducal family of Rimini, and the pride and
beauty of her race had descended to her
undiminished. Her hair, slightly waving,
was of a glistening black, save when the
sunlight touched it, when faint coppery
tints and red CLEANS f1ickered in it's glossy
depths Her eyes in her calm moments
were dark violet, but changed with her
moods from cold steel gray to glowing
dusk, like the sky in a moonless August
night. She was pale, with the pallor of a
perfect opal beneath whose surface the soft
| hues come and go ceaselessly. Many
sculptor, catching glimpse of her figure,
and with it's stately grace and voluptuous
curves, had dreamed over it in his studio,
vainly striving to fix some hint of it in the
plastic clay. Many man had gone from
her presence with sorrowful longing at
his heart, knowing full well that she was
not for him. Yet to look at her face was
to comprehend that if she ever should love
it would be with a passionate devotion
| which few women are capable of and few
men can appreciate.
| In the very height of her reign, when, to
use scarcely too extravaganza metaphor,
all Rome was at her feet, there came to the
city poor student from the old university
of Padua. Marco Carnese had the dark,
| handsome features the brilliant black
eyes, the 1.-THE figure and the fiery passion
of the Sicilians. His fine talents had won
him some fame and a fellowship in his
college there, and the threadbare suit he
wore constituted almost his sole posses
sions. His poverty had increased his nat
ural reserve and he lived in Rome, friend
less and solitary, buried in the seclusion of
| his ill furnished garnet.
| 1t seemed the merest irony that Marco
should meet Olivia Anfiedi and fall madly
in love with her, but so it was. She, too,
had noticed the handsome student, with
his mournful expression and reserved air,
and had he been of her own grade of life,
it is possible that s night have looked
upon his love with favorable eyes. AS it
was she passed him with cold Indifference,
| less bearable to his pride than downright
contempt.
He was not blind to the wide gulf be-
tween their respective stations; nor to the
utter hopelessness of his passion. But he
did not pause to reflect; he could think of
nothing but that he worshiped her with
worship that was like consuming flame
He could not keep away from her. 1t
seemed as if he drew his life from her pres
ence; and yet the sight of her beautiful
| face, so near and yet SO utterly removed
| from him. was a torture.
Denied her house, he followed her at a
distance in the street; always with the
same mute, imploring look. He managed
to introduce himself into the dwellings
where she visited; and often at night,
glancing about the drawing room, she met
| his dark, mournfuI eyes resting upon her
in passionate alteration.
He had ventured to address her, in low,
trembling tones. She had replied with a
freezing reserve that would have changed
the love of most men into hatred. With
Marco Carnese it merely added fuel to the
| fame
| One night he followed her into the Or
angery of a mansion where they were both
guests, hardly knowing what he wished or
meant to do. Seeing her there alone, he
approached her, and suddenly throwing
himself upon his knees at her feet he
poured out his passion in a torrent of
words which would have swept away the
resistance of many women. She only looked
down at him with curling lip.
"You are mad, signor," she said.
eyes," he exclaimed 81 am mad-you, so
noble, rich and honored; so poor, humble
and unknown! It is madness But all,
how gladly would die for one smile, one
look of love from you, beautiful oneP'
"Yo4 are offensive, signor," she said,
with exasperating calmness, "Either leave
me or permit me to pass"
He arose with flaming cheek, and stood
with bent head as she swept haughtily
by him as il he had been an impertinent
mental. He had made himself ridiculous
in her eyes! She despised him!
ANY other man would have been utterly
overwhelmed by such rebuff. But as he
had said, he was mad. For few days he
buried himself in the seclusion of his gar
ret, suffering only as such natures can
suffer. Then he emerged, and again was
seen, with his melancholy eyes and appeal
ing expression, haunting Olivia Anfedi like
an importunate and irrepressible phantom
Everybody in Rome knew of the hopeless
| passion of the threadbare Sicilian for the
| noble lady But it was little to him if