yes
lightened with admiration, his head nodding approval.

Then gently touching Mauro's arm, the Duke queried: "And so you admire
the Duchess, young man?"

With a start Mauro answered, after a dazed stare at the Duke: "A thousand
pardons, Excellency! But yes, sir; who in all the world could fail to
admire her?"

"Yes, yes," replied the Duke; "God never made but one other quite her
equal, and her He made in her own very image--Sofia; _que Dios la
aguarda_!"

Mauro gravely bowed, received the papers from the Duke, and withdrew.

Turning to his secretary, the Duke sighed deeply and murmured: "_Dios
mio!_ if only I had a son of my own blood like that boy! What a pity he
should be tied down to paltry pettifoggery!"

Meantime Mauro, striding disconsolate past an angle of the narrow garden
of the inner courtyard, was detained by a soft voice issuing from the
seclusion of a bench beneath the drooping boughs of an ancient fig tree:
"_Buenos dias, Don Mauro. Bueno es verte revuelto._"

"Buenos dias, Condesa; and it is indeed good to me to be back, good to
hear thy voice--the first real happiness I have known since my ears last
welcomed its sweet tones. Good to be back! ah! Condesa Sofia, for me it
is to live again."

"But, Don Mauro--"

"A thousand pardons, Condesa, but thy duenna may join thee at any moment,
and my heart has long guarded a message for thee it can no longer hold
and stay whole,--a message thou mayest well resent for its gross
presumption, and yet a message I would here and now deliver if I knew I
must die for it the next minute.

"From childhood hast thus possessed me. Never a night for the last ten
years have I lain down without a prayer to the Virgin for thy safety and
happiness; never a day but I have so lived that my conduct shall be
worthy of thee. Though I am the son of thy father's _licenciado_, thou
well knowest the blood of a long line of proud warriors burns in my
veins. Hope that thou mightst ever even deign to listen to me I have
never ventured to cherish--"

"But Don Mauro--"

"Again a thousand pardons, Condesa, but I must tell thee thou art the
light of my soul. Without thee all the world is a valley of bitterness;
with thee its most arid desert would be an Eden. The birds are ever
chanting to me thy name. Every pool reflects thy sweet face. Every
breeze wafts me the fragrance of thy dear presence. Every thunderous
roll of the Almighty's war-drums calls me to attempt som