and she
ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must
go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the
future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if
you would be useful to her some day. What, almost a man and I see you
in tears?' Upon that I confessed my love for you. He was silent, then
placing his hand on my shoulder he said in a voice full of emotion:
'Do you think you alone know how to love; that it costs your father
nothing to let you go away from him? It is not long since we lost your
mother, and I am growing old, yet I accept my solitude and run the risk
of never seeing you again. For you the future opens, for me it shuts;
the fire of youth is yours, frost touches me, and it is you who weep,
you who do not know how to sacrifice the present to a to-morrow good
for you and for your country."

Ibarra's agitation stopped the reading; he had become very pale and
was walking back and forth.

"What is it? You are ill!" cried Maria, going toward him.

"With you I have forgotten my duty; I should be on my way to the
pueblo. To-morrow is the Feast of the Dead."

Maria was silent. She fixed on him her great, thoughtful eyes, then
turned to pick some flowers.

"Go," she said, and her voice was deep and sweet; "I keep you no
longer. In a few days we shall see each other again. Put these flowers
on your father's grave."

A little later, Captain Tiago found Maria in the chapel, at the foot of
a statue of the Virgin, weeping. "Come, come," said he, to console her;
"burn some candles to St. Roch and St. Michael, patrons of travellers,
for the tulisanes are numerous: better spend four reales for wax than
pay a ransom."

VIII.

REMINISCENCES.

Ibarra's carriage was crossing one of the most animated quarters of
Manila. The street life that had saddened him the night before, now,
in spite of his sorrow, made him smile. Everything awakened a world
of sleeping recollections.

These streets were not yet paved, so if the sun shone two days
continuously, they turned to powder which covered everything. But
let it rain a day, you had a mire, reflecting at night the shifting
lamps of the carriages and bespattering the foot-passengers on the
narrow walks. How many women had lost their embroidered slippers in
these muddy waves!

The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino,
doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults,