hose pleasant solitudes served as a seat. Pepe bent over
her. Her eyes were closed, her forehead rested on the palm of her hand.
A few moments later the daughter of Dona Perfecta Polentinos gave her
cousin, amid happy tears, a tender glance followed by these words:

"I loved you before I had ever seen you."

Placing her hands in those of the young man she rose to her feet, and
their forms disappeared among the leafy branches of an oleander walk.
Night was falling and soft shadows enveloped the lower end of the
garden, while the last rays of the setting sun crowned the tree-tops
with fleeting splendors. The noisy republic of the birds kept up a
deafening clamor in the upper branches. It was the hour in which, after
flitting about in the joyous regions of the sky, they were all going
to rest, and they were disputing with one another the branches they
had selected for sleeping-places. Their chatter at times had a sound
of recrimination and controversy, at times of mockery and merriment. In
their voluble twitter the little rascals said the most insulting things
to each other, pecking at each other and flapping their wings, as
orators wave their arms when they want to make their hearers believe
the lies they are telling them. But words of love were to be heard there
too, for the peace of the hour and the beauty of the spot invited to it.
A sharp ear might have distinguished the following:

"I loved you before I had even seen you, and if you had not come I
should have died of grief. Mamma used to give me your father's letters
to read, and he praised you so much in them that I used to say, 'That
is the man who ought to be my husband.' For a long time your father said
nothing about our marrying, which seemed to me great negligence. Uncle
Cayetano, whenever he spoke of you, would say, 'There are not many men
like him in the world. The woman who gets him for a husband may think
herself fortunate.' At last your father said what he could not avoid
saying. Yes, he could not avoid saying it--I was expecting it every
day."

Shortly after these words the same voice added uneasily: "Some one is
following us."

Emerging from among the oleanders, Pepe, turning round, saw two men
approaching them, and touching the leaves of a young tree near by, he
said aloud to his companion:

"It is not proper to prune young trees like this for the first time
until they have taken firm root. Trees recently planted have not
sufficient strength to b