f him. And dismissing them with a graceful bend of her head, she
returned to her doze and her cigarito.

Mary conducted Louis to the cool, shaded, arched doorway, opening under
the rich marble cloister of the court-yard, where a fountain made a
delicious bubbling in the centre. She clapped her hands--a little
negro girl appeared, to whom she gave an order, and presently two more
negroes came in, bringing magnificent oranges and pomegranates, and
iced wine and water, on a silver tray, covered with a
richly-embroidered napkin. He would have felt himself in the Alhambra,
if he could have felt anything but that he was beside Mary.

'Sit down, sit down, you have proved yourself Mary enough already by
waiting on me. I want to look at you, and to hear you. You are not
altered!' he cried joyfully, as he drew her into the full light. 'You
have your own eyes, and that's your very smile! only grown handsomer.
That's all!'

She really was. She was a woman to be handsomer at twenty-seven than
at twenty-one; and with the glow of unexpected bliss over her fine
countenance, it did not need a lover's eye to behold her as something
better than beautiful.

And for her! who shall tell the marvel of scarcely-credited joy, every
time she heard the music of his softly-dropped distinct words, and
looked up at the beloved face, perhaps a little less fair, with rather
less of the boyish delicacy of feature, but more noble, more
defined--as soft and sweet as ever, but with all the indecision gone;
all that expression that had at times seemed like weakness. He was not
the mere lad she had loved with a guiding motherly love, but a man to
respect and rely on--ready, collected, dealing with easy coolness with
the person who had domineered over that house for years. He was all,
and more than all, her fondest fancy had framed; and coming to her aid
at the moment of her utmost difficulty, brought to her by the love
which she had not dared to confide in nor encourage! No wonder that
she feared to move, lest she should find herself awakened from a dream
too happy to last.

'But oh, Louis,' said she, as if it were almost a pledge of reality to
recollect a vexation, 'I must tell you first, for it will grieve you,
and we did not take pains enough to keep him out of temptation. That
unhappy runaway clerk--'

'Is safe at Callao,' said Louis, 'and is to help me to release you from
the meshes they have woven round you. Save for the warning he se