booming note of the bull-bat,
the sonorous call of the trumpeter swan, and that lay far excelling
all--the clear song of the polyglot thrush, the famed mocking-bird of
America.

No wonder the invalid, recovering from his illness, after the long dark
spell that has obscured his intellect, wrapping his soul, as it were, in
a shroud--no wonder he fancies the scene to be a sort of Paradise,
worthy of being inhabited by Peris. One is there he deems fair as Houri
or Peri, unsurpassed by any ideal of Hindoo or Persian fable--Adela
Miranda. In her he beholds beauty of a type striking as rare; not
common anywhere, and only seen among women in whose veins courses the
blue blood of Andalusia--a beauty perhaps not in accordance with the
standard of taste acknowledged in the icy northland. The _vigolite_
upon her upper lip might look a little bizarre in an assemblage of Saxon
dames, just as her sprightly spirit would offend the sentiment of a
strait-laced Puritanism.

It has no such effect upon Frank Hamersley. The child of a land above
all others free from conventionalism, with a nature attuned to the
picturesque, these peculiarities, while piquing his fancy, have fixed
his admiration. Long before leaving his sick couch there has been but
one world for him--that where dwells Adela Miranda; but one being in
it--herself.

Surely it was decreed by fate that these two should love one another!
Surely for them was there a marriage in heaven! Else why brought
together in such a strange place and by such a singular chain of
circumstances?

For himself, Hamersley thinks of this--builds hopes upon it deeming it
an omen.

Another often occurs to him, also looking like fate. He remembers that
portrait on the wall at Albuquerque, and how it had predisposed him in
favour of the original. The features of Spano-Mexican type--so unlike
those he had been accustomed to in his own country--had vividly
impressed him. Gazing upon it he had almost felt love for the likeness.
Then the description of the young girl given by her brother, with the
incidents that led to friendly relations between him and Colonel
Miranda, all had contributed to sow the seed of a tender sentiment in
the heart of the young Kentuckian. It had not died out. Neither time
nor absence had obliterated it. Far off--even when occupied with the
pressing claims of business--that portrait-face had often appeared upon
the retina of his memory, and often also in the vision