FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170  
171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   >>   >|  
ny a ball was given. The aristocratic pioneers of California loved play as well as work. Beyond were great green plains alive with cattle, and above all curved the hills dark with pines. Three soldiers had left the Presidio and were sauntering toward the convent. "It is Enrico Ortega!" whispered Eustaquia Carillo, excitedly. "And Ramon de Castro!" scarcely breathed Elena Estudillo. "And Jose Yorba!" "Not Pepe Gomez? Ay, yi!" "Nor Manuel Ameste!" The only girl who did not speak stood at the end of the row. Her eyes were fixed on the church, whose windows were dazzling with the reflected sunlight of the late afternoon. The officers, who apparently had been absorbed in conversation and their fragrant cigaritos, suddenly looked up and saw the row of handsome and mischievous faces. They ran forward, and dashed their sombreros into the dust before the wall. "At your feet, senoritas! At your feet!" they cried. "Have they any?" whispered one. "How unreal they look! How symbolical!" "The rose in your hair, Senorita Eustaquia, for the love of Heaven!" cried Ortega, in a loud whisper. She detached the rose, touched it with her lips, and cast it to the officer. He almost swallowed it in the ardour of his caresses. None of the girls spoke. That would have seemed to them the height of impropriety. But Elena extended her arm over the wall so that her little hand hung just above young Castro's head. He leaped three times in the air, and finally succeeded in brushing his mustache against those coveted finger-tips: rewarded with an approving but tantalizing laugh. Meanwhile, Jose Yorba had torn a silver eagle from his sombrero, and flung it to Lola de Castro, who caught and thrust it in her hair. "Ay, Dios! Dios! that the cruel wall divides us," cried Yorba. "We will mount each upon the other's shoulder--" "We will make a ladder from the limbs of the pines on the mountain--" "_Senoritas_!" The six heads dropped from the wall like so many Humpty-Dumpties. As they flashed about the officers caught a glimpse of horror in twelve expanded eyes. A tall woman, serenely beautiful, clad in a long gray gown fastened at her throat with a cross, stood just within the trees. The six culprits thought of the tragic romance which had given them the honour of being educated by Concepcion de Arguello, and hoped for some small measure of mercy. The girl who had looked over the heads of the officers, letting her gaze res
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170  
171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Castro

 

officers

 

caught

 

looked

 

Eustaquia

 

whispered

 

Ortega

 

tantalizing

 
educated
 

coveted


mustache
 

Arguello

 

brushing

 
Concepcion
 

finger

 
rewarded
 
romance
 

honour

 

approving

 

succeeded


tragic

 

letting

 
height
 

impropriety

 
extended
 

leaped

 

measure

 

finally

 
silver
 

beautiful


Senoritas

 

serenely

 

dropped

 

mountain

 

ladder

 

glimpse

 

horror

 

expanded

 
flashed
 
Humpty

Dumpties

 

shoulder

 

culprits

 

thrust

 

sombrero

 

twelve

 

thought

 

fastened

 

divides

 

throat