“In went he and his thirty fellow-bandits, and the feast continued, with songs and libations, far into the night, while Mangora often looked round, and at last boldly asked for the fair Miranda: but she had shut herself into her lodging, pleading illness.

“A plea, fair ladies, which little availed that hapless dame, for no sooner had the Spaniards retired to rest, leaving (by I know not what madness) Mangora and his Indians within, than they were awakened by the cry of fire, the explosion of their magazine, and the inward rush of the four thousand from the marsh outside.

“Why pain your gentle ears with details of slaughter? A few fearful minutes sufficed to exterminate my bewildered and unarmed countrymen, to bind the only survivors, Miranda (innocent cause of the whole tragedy) and four other women with their infants, and to lead them away in triumph across the forest towards the Indian town.

“Stunned by the suddenness of the evils which had passed, and still more by the thought of those worse which were to come (as she too well foresaw), Miranda travelled all night through the forest, and was brought in triumph at day-dawn before the Indian king to receive her doom. Judge of her astonishment, when, on looking up, she saw that he was not Mangora.

“A ray of hope flashed across her, and she asked where he was.

“‘He was slain last night,’ said the king; ‘and I, his brother Siripa, am now cacique of the Timbuez.’

“It was true; Lara, maddened with drink, rage, and wounds, had caught up his sword, rushed into the thick of the fight, singled out the traitor, and slain him on the spot; and then, forgetting safety in revenge, had continued to plunge his sword into the corpse, heedless of the blows of the savages, till he fell pierced with a hundred wounds.

“A ray of hope, as I said, flashed across the wretched Miranda for a moment; but the next she found that she had been freed from one bandit only to be delivered to another.

“‘Yes,’ said the new king, in broken Spanish; ‘my brother played a bold stake, and lost it; but it was well worth the risk, and he showed his wisdom thereby. You cannot be his queen now: you must content yourself with being mine.’

“Miranda, desperate, answered him with every fierce taunt which she could invent against his treachery and his crime; and asked him, how he came to dream that the wife of a Christian Spaniard would condescend to become the mistress of a heathen savage; hoping, unhappy lady, to exasperate him into killing her on the spot. But in vain; she only prolonged thereby her own misery. For, whether it was, ladies, that the novel sight of divine virtue and beauty awed (as it may have awed me ere now), where it had just before maddened; or whether some dream crossed the savage (as it may have crossed me ere now), that he could make the wisdom of a mortal angel help his ambition, as well as her beauty his happiness; or whether (which I will never believe of one of those dark children of the devil, though I can boldly assert it of myself) some spark of boldness within him made him too proud to take by force what he could not win by persuasion, certain it is, as the Indians themselves confessed afterwards, that the savage only answered her by smiles; and bidding his men unbind her, told her that she was no slave of his, and that it only lay with her to become the sovereign of him and all his vassals; assigned her a hut to herself, loaded her with savage ornaments, and for several weeks treated her with no less courtesy (so miraculous is the power of love) than if he had been a cavalier of Castile.

“Three months and more, ladies, as I have heard, passed in this misery, and every day Miranda grew more desperate of all deliverance, and saw staring her in the face, nearer and nearer, some hideous and shameful end; when one day going down with the wives of the cacique to draw water in the river, she saw on the opposite bank a white man in a tattered Spanish dress, with a drawn sword in his hand; who had no sooner espied her, than shrieking her name, he plunged into the stream, swam across, landed at her feet, and clasped her in his arms. It was no other, ladies, incredible as it may seem, than Don Sebastian himself, who had returned with Ruiz Moschera to the tower, and found it only a charred and bloodstained heap of ruins.

“He guessed, as by inspiration, what had passed, and whither his lady was gone; and without a thought of danger, like a true Spanish gentleman and a true Spanish lover, darted off alone into the forest, and guided only by the inspiration of his own loyal heart, found again his treasure, and found it still unstained and his own.

“Who can describe the joy, and who again the terror, of their meeting? The Indian women had fled in fear, and for the short ten minutes that the lovers were left together, life, to be sure, was one long kiss. But what to do they knew not. To go inland was to rush into the enemy’s arms. He would have swum with her across the river, and attempted it; but his strength, worn out with hunger and travel, failed him; he drew her with difficulty on shore again, and sat down by her to await their doom with prayer, the first and last resource of virtuous ladies, as weapons are of cavaliers.

“Alas for them! May no true lovers ever have to weep over joys so soon lost, after having been so hardly found! For, ere a quarter of an hour was passed, the Indian women, who had fled at his approach, returned with all the warriors of the tribe. Don Sebastian, desperate, would fain have slain his wife and himself on the spot; but his hand sank again—and whose would not but an Indian’s?—as he raised it against that fair and faithful breast; in a few minutes he was surrounded, seized from behind, disarmed, and carried in triumph into the village. And if you cannot feel for him in that misery, fair ladies, who have known no sorrow, yet I, a prisoner, can.”

Don Guzman paused a moment, as if overcome by emotion; and I will not say that, as he paused, he did not look to see if Rose Salterne’s eyes were on him, as indeed they were.

“Yes, I can feel with him; I can estimate, better than you, ladies, the greatness of that love which could submit to captivity; to the loss of his sword; to the loss of that honor, which, next to god and his mother, is the true Spaniard’s deity. There are those who have suffered that shame at the hands of valiant gentlemen” (and again Don Guzman looked up at Rose), “and yet would have sooner died a thousand deaths; but he dared to endure it from the hands of villains, savages, heathens; for he was a true Spaniard, and therefore a true lover: but I will go on with my tale.

“This wretched pair, then, as I have been told by Ruiz Moschera himself, stood together before the cacique. He, like a true child of the devil, comprehending in a moment who Don Sebastian was, laughed with delight at seeing his rival in his power, and bade bind him at once to a tree, and shoot him to death with arrows.

“But the poor Miranda sprang forward, and threw herself at his feet, and with piteous entreaties besought for mercy from him who knew no mercy.

“And yet love and the sight of her beauty, and the terrible eloquence of her words, while she invoked on his head the just vengeance of Heaven, wrought even on his heart: nevertheless the pleasure of seeing her, who had so long scorned him, a suppliant at his feet, was too delicate to be speedily foregone; and not till she was all but blind with tears, and dumb with agony of pleading, did he make answer, that if she would consent to become his wife, her husband’s life should be spared. She, in her haste and madness, sobbed out desperately I know not what consent. Don Sebastian, who understood, if not the language, still the meaning (so had love quickened his understanding), shrieked to her not to lose her precious soul for the sake of his worthless body; that death was nothing compared to the horror of that shame; and such other words as became a noble and valiant gentleman. She, shuddering now at her own frailty, would have recalled her promise; but Siripa kept her to it, vowing, if she disappointed him again, such a death to her husband as made her blood run cold to hear of; and the wretched woman could only escape for the present by some story, that it was not the custom of her race to celebrate nuptials till a month after the betrothment; that the anger of Heaven would be on her, unless she first performed in solitude certain religious rites; and lastly, that if he dared to lay hands on her husband, she would die so resolutely, that every drop of water should be deep enough to drown her, every thorn sharp enough to stab her to the heart: till fearing lest by demanding too much he should lose all, and awed too, as he had been at first by a voice and looks which seemed to be, in comparison with his own, divine, Siripa bade her go back to her hut, promising her husband life; but promising too, that if he ever found the two speaking together, even for a moment, he would pour out on them both all the cruelty of those tortures in which the devil, their father, has so perfectly instructed the Indians.

“So Don Sebastian, being stripped of his garments, and painted after the Indian fashion, was set to all mean and toilsome work, amid the buffetings and insults of the whole village. And this, ladies, he endured without a murmur, ay, took delight in enduring it, as he would have endured things worse a thousand times, only for the sake, like a true lover as he was, of being near the goddess whom he worshipped, and of seeing her now and then afar off, happy enough to be repaid even by that for all indignities.

“And yet, you who have loved may well guess, as I can, that ere a week had passed, Don Sebastian and the Lady Miranda had found means, in spite of all spiteful eyes, to speak to each other once and again; and to assure each other of their love; even to talk of escape, before the month’s grace should be expired. And Miranda, whose heart was full of courage as long as she felt her husband near her, went so far as to plan a means of escape which seemed possible and hopeful.

“For the youngest wife of the cacique, who, till Miranda’s coming, had been his favorite, often talked with the captive, insulting and tormenting her in her spite and jealousy, and receiving in return only gentle and conciliatory words. And one day when the woman had been threatening to kill her, Miranda took courage to say, ‘Do you fancy that I shall not be as glad to be rid of your husband, as you to be rid of me? Why kill me needlessly, when all that you require is to get me forth of the place? Out of sight, out of mind. When I am gone, your husband will soon forget me, and you will be his favorite as before.’ Soon, seeing that the girl was inclined to listen, she went on to tell her of her love to Don Sebastian, entreating and adjuring her, by the love which she bore the cacique, to pity and help her; and so won upon the girl, that she consented to be privy to Miranda’s escape, and even offered to give her an opportunity of speaking to her husband about it; and at last was so won over by Miranda, that she consented to keep all intruders out of the way, while Don Sebastian that very night visited Miranda in her hut.

“The hapless husband, thirsting for his love, was in that hut, be sure, the moment that kind darkness covered his steps:—and what cheer these two made of each other, when they once found themselves together, lovers must fancy for themselves: but so it was, that after many a leave-taking, there was no departure; and when the night was well-nigh past, Sebastian and Miranda were still talking together as if they had never met before, and would never meet again.

“But it befell, ladies (would that I was not speaking truth, but inventing, that I might have invented something merrier for your ears), it befell that very night, that the young wife of the cacique, whose heart was lifted up with the thought that her rival was now at last disposed of, tried all her wiles to win back her faithless husband; but in vain. He only answered her caresses by indifference, then by contempt, then insults, then blows (for with the Indians, woman is always a slave, or rather a beast of burden), and went on to draw such cruel comparisons between her dark skin and the glorious fairness of the Spanish lady, that the wretched girl, beside herself with rage, burst out at last with her own secret. ‘Fool that you are to madden yourself about a stranger who prizes one hair of her Spanish husband’s head more than your whole body! Much does your new bride care for you! She is at this moment in her husband’s arms!’

“The cacique screamed furiously to know what she meant; and she, her jealousy and hate of the guiltless lady boiling over once for all, bade him, if he doubted her, go see for himself.

“What use of many words? They were taken. Love, or rather lust, repelled, turned in a moment into devilish hate; and the cacique, summoning his Indians, bade them bind the wretched Don Sebastian to a tree, and there inflicted on him the lingering death to which he had at first been doomed. For Miranda he had more exquisite cruelty in store. And shall I tell it? Yes, ladies, for the honor of love and of Spain, and for a justification of those cruelties against the Indians which are so falsely imputed to our most Christian nation, it shall be told: he delivered the wretched lady over to the tender mercies of his wives; and what they were is neither fit for me to tell, nor you to hear.

“The two wretched lovers cast themselves upon each other’s neck; drank each other’s salt tears with the last kisses; accused themselves as the cause of each other’s death; and then, rising above fear and grief, broke out into triumph at thus dying for and with each other; and proclaiming themselves the martyrs of love, commended their souls to God, and then stepped joyfully and proudly to their doom.”

“And what was that?” asked half-a-dozen trembling voices.

“Don Sebastian, as I have said, was shot to death with arrows; but as for the Lady Miranda, the wretches themselves confessed afterwards, when they received due vengeance for their crimes (as they did receive it), that after all shameful and horrible indignities, she was bound to a tree, and there burned slowly in her husband’s sight, stifling her shrieks lest they should wring his heart by one additional pang, and never taking her eyes, to the last, off that beloved face. And so died (but not unavenged) Sebastian de Hurtado and Lucia Miranda,—a Spanish husband and a Spanish wife.”

The Don paused, and the ladies were silent awhile, for, indeed, there was many a gentle tear to be dried; but at last Mrs. St. Leger spoke, half, it seemed, to turn off the too painful impression of the over-true tale, the outlines whereof may be still read in old Charlevoix.

“You have told a sad and a noble tale, sir, and told it well; but, though your story was to set forth a perfect husband, it has ended rather by setting forth a perfect wife.”

“And if I have forgotten, madam, in praising her to praise him also, have I not done that which would have best pleased his heroical and chivalrous spirit? He, be sure, would have forgotten his own virtue in the light of hers; and he would have wished me, I doubt not, to do the same also. And beside, madam, where ladies are the theme, who has time or heart to cast one thought upon their slaves?” And the Don made one of his deliberate and highly-finished bows.

“Don Guzman is courtier enough, as far as compliments go,” said one of the young ladies; “but it was hardly courtier-like of him to find us so sad an entertainment, upon a merry evening.”

“Yes,” said another; “we must ask him for no more stories.”

“Or songs either,” said a third. “I fear he knows none but about forsaken maidens and despairing lovers.”

“I know nothing at all about forsaken ladies, madam; because ladies are never forsaken in Spain.”

“Nor about lovers despairing there, I suppose?”

“That good opinion of ourselves, madam, with which you English are pleased to twit us now and then, always prevents so sad a state of mind. For myself, I have had little to do with love; but I have had still less to do with despair, and intend, by help of Heaven, to have less.”

“You are valiant, sir.”

“You would not have me a coward, madam?” and so forth.

Now all this time Don Guzman had been talking at Rose Salterne, and giving her the very slightest hint, every now and then, that he was talking at her; till the poor girl’s face was almost crimson with pleasure, and she gave herself up to the spell. He loved her still; perhaps he knew that she loved him: he must know some day. She felt now that there was no escape; she was almost glad to think that there was none.

The dark, handsome, stately face; the melodious voice, with its rich Spanish accent; the quiet grace of the gestures; the wild pathos of the story; even the measured and inflated style, as of one speaking of another and a loftier world; the chivalrous respect and admiration for woman, and for faithfulness to woman—what a man he was! If he had been pleasant heretofore, he was now enchanting. All the ladies round felt that, she could see, as much as she herself did; no, not quite as much, she hoped. She surely understood him, and felt for his loneliness more than any of them. Had she not been feeling for it through long and sad months? But it was she whom he was thinking of, she whom he was speaking to, all along. Oh, why had the tale ended so soon? She would gladly have sat and wept her eyes out till midnight over one melodious misery after another; but she was quite wise enough to keep her secret to herself; and sat behind the rest, with greedy eyes and demure lips, full of strange and new happiness—or misery; she knew not which to call it.

In the meanwhile, as it was ordained, Cary could see and hear through the window of the hall a good deal of what was going on.

“How that Spanish crocodile ogles the Rose!” whispered he to young St. Leger.

“What wonder? He is not the first by many a one.”

“Ay—but—By heaven, she is making side-shots at him with those languishing eyes of hers, the little baggage!”

“What wonder? He is not the first, say I, and won’t be the last. Pass the wine, man.”

“I have had enough; between sack and singing, my head is as mazed as a dizzy sheep. Let me slip out.”

“Not yet, man; remember you are bound for one song more.”

So Cary, against his will, sat and sang another song; and in the meanwhile the party had broken up, and wandered away by twos and threes, among trim gardens and pleasaunces, and clipped yew-walks—

     Where west-winds with musky wing
     About the cedarn alleys fling
     Nard and cassia’s balmy smells—”

admiring the beauty of that stately place, long since passed into other hands, and fallen to decay, but then (if old Prince speaks true) one of the noblest mansions of the West.

At last Cary got away and out; sober, but just enough flushed with wine to be ready for any quarrel; and luckily for him, had not gone twenty yards along the great terrace before he met Lady Grenville.

“Has your ladyship seen Don Guzman?”

“Yes—why, where is he? He was with me not ten minutes ago. You know he is going back to Spain.”

“Going! Has his ransom come?”

“Yes, and with it a governorship in the Indies.”

“Governorship! Much good may it do the governed.”

“Why not, then? He is surely a most gallant gentleman.”

“Gallant enough—yes,” said Cary, carelessly. “I must find him, and congratulate him on his honors.”

“I will help you to find him,” said Lady Grenville, whose woman’s eye and ear had already suspected something. “Escort me, sir.”

“It is but too great an honor to squire the Queen of Bideford,” said Cary, offering his hand.

“If I am your queen, sir, I must be obeyed,” answered she, in a meaning tone. Cary took the hint, and went on chattering cheerfully enough.

But Don Guzman was not to be found in garden or in pleasaunce.

“Perhaps,” at last said a burgher’s wife, with a toss of her head, “your ladyship may meet with him at Hankford’s oak.”

“At Hankford’s oak! what should take him there?”

“Pleasant company, I reckon” (with another toss). “I heard him and Mistress Salterne talking about the oak just now.”

Cary turned pale and drew in his breath.

“Very likely,” said Lady Grenville, quietly. “Will you walk with me so far, Mr. Cary?”

“To the world’s end, if your ladyship condescends so far.” And off they went, Lady Grenville wishing that they were going anywhere else, but afraid to let Cary go alone; and suspecting, too, that some one or other ought to go.

So they went down past the herds of deer, by a trim-kept path into the lonely dell where stood the fatal oak; and, as they went, Lady Grenville, to avoid more unpleasant talk, poured into Cary’s unheeding ears the story (which he probably had heard fifty times before) how old Chief-justice Hankford (whom some contradictory myths make the man who committed Prince Henry to prison for striking him on the bench), weary of life and sickened at the horrors and desolations of the Wars of the Roses, went down to his house at Annery there, and bade his keeper shoot any man who, passing through the deer-park at night, should refuse to stand when challenged; and then going down into that glen himself, and hiding himself beneath that oak, met willingly by his keeper’s hand the death which his own dared not inflict: but ere the story was half done, Cary grasped Lady Grenville’s hand so tightly that she gave a little shriek of pain.

“There they are!” whispered he, heedless of her; and pointed to the oak, where, half hidden by the tall fern, stood Rose and the Spaniard.

Her head was on his bosom. She seemed sobbing, trembling; he talking earnestly and passionately; but Lady Grenville’s little shriek made them both look up. To turn and try to escape was to confess all; and the two, collecting themselves instantly, walked towards her, Rose wishing herself fathoms deep beneath the earth.

“Mind, sir,” whispered Lady Grenville as they came up; “you have seen nothing.”

“Madam?”

“If you are not on my ground, you are on my brother’s. Obey me!”

Cary bit his lip, and bowed courteously to the Don.

“I have to congratulate you, I hear, senor, on your approaching departure.”

“I kiss your hands, senor, in return; but I question whether it be a matter of congratulation, considering all that I leave behind.”

“So do I,” answered Cary, bluntly enough, and the four walked back to the house, Lady Grenville taking everything for granted with the most charming good humor, and chatting to her three silent companions till they gained the terrace once more, and found four or five of the gentlemen, with Sir Richard at their head, proceeding to the bowling-green.

Lady Grenville, in an agony of fear about the quarrel which she knew must come, would have gladly whispered five words to her husband: but she dared not do it before the Spaniard, and dreaded, too, a faint or a scream from the Rose, whose father was of the party. So she walked on with her fair prisoner, commanding Cary to escort them in, and the Spaniard to go to the bowling-green.

Cary obeyed: but he gave her the slip the moment she was inside the door, and then darted off to the gentlemen.

His heart was on fire: all his old passion for the Rose had flashed up again at the sight of her with a lover;—and that lover a Spaniard! He would cut his throat for him, if steel could do it! Only he recollected that Salterne was there, and shrank from exposing Rose; and shrank, too, as every gentleman should, from making a public quarrel in another man’s house. Never mind. Where there was a will there was a way. He could get him into a corner, and quarrel with him privately about the cut of his beard, or the color of his ribbon. So in he went; and, luckily or unluckily, found standing together apart from the rest, Sir Richard, the Don, and young St. Leger.

“Well, Don Guzman, you have given us wine-bibbers the slip this afternoon. I hope you have been well employed in the meanwhile?”

“Delightfully to myself, senor,” said the Don, who, enraged at being interrupted, if not discovered, was as ready to fight as Cary, but disliked, of course, an explosion as much as he did; “and to others, I doubt not.”

“So the ladies say,” quoth St. Leger. “He has been making them all cry with one of his stories, and robbing us meanwhile of the pleasure we had hoped for from some of his Spanish songs.”

“The devil take Spanish songs!” said Cary, in a low voice, but loud enough for the Spaniard. Don Guzman clapt his hand on his sword-hilt instantly.

“Lieutenant Cary,” said Sir Richard, in a stern voice, “the wine has surely made you forget yourself!”

“As sober as yourself, most worshipful knight; but if you want a Spanish song, here’s one; and a very scurvy one it is, like its subject—

       “Don Desperado
        Walked on the Prado,
     And there he met his enemy.
        He pulled out a knife, a,
        And let out his life, a,
     And fled for his own across the sea.”

And he bowed low to the Spaniard.

The insult was too gross to require any spluttering.

“Senor Cary, we meet?”

“I thank your quick apprehension, Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto. When, where, and with what weapons?”

“For God’s sake, gentlemen! Nephew Arthur, Cary is your guest; do you know the meaning of this?”

St. Leger was silent. Cary answered for him.

“An old Irish quarrel, I assure you, sir. A matter of years’ standing. In unlacing the senor’s helmet, the evening that he was taken prisoner, I was unlucky enough to twitch his mustachios. You recollect the fact, of course, senor?”

“Perfectly,” said the Spaniard; and then, half-amused and half-pleased, in spite of his bitter wrath, at Cary’s quickness and delicacy in shielding Rose, he bowed, and—

“And it gives me much pleasure to find that he whom I trust to have the pleasure of killing tomorrow morning is a gentleman whose nice sense of honor renders him thoroughly worthy of the sword of a De Soto.”

Cary bowed in return, while Sir Richard, who saw plainly enough that the excuse was feigned, shrugged his shoulders.

“What weapons, senor?” asked Will again.

“I should have preferred a horse and pistols,” said Don Guzman after a moment, half to himself, and in Spanish; “they make surer work of it than bodkins; but” (with a sigh and one of his smiles) “beggars must not be choosers.”

“The best horse in my stable is at your service, senor,” said Sir Richard Grenville, instantly.

“And in mine also, senor,” said Cary; “and I shall be happy to allow you a week to train him, if he does not answer at first to a Spanish hand.”

“You forget in your courtesy, gentle sir, that the insult being with me, the time lies with me also. We wipe it off to-morrow morning with simple rapiers and daggers. Who is your second?”

“Mr. Arthur St. Leger here, senor: who is yours?”

The Spaniard felt himself alone in the world for one moment; and then answered with another of his smiles,—

“Your nation possesses the soul of honor. He who fights an Englishman needs no second.”

“And he who fights among Englishmen will always find one,” said Sir Richard. “I am the fittest second for my guest.”

“You only add one more obligation, illustrious cavalier, to a two-years’ prodigality of favors, which I shall never be able to repay.”

“But, Nephew Arthur,” said Grenville, “you cannot surely be second against your father’s guest, and your own uncle.”

“I cannot help it, sir; I am bound by an oath, as Will can tell you. I suppose you won’t think it necessary to let me blood?”

“You half deserve it, sirrah!” said Sir Richard, who was very angry: but the Don interposed quickly.

“Heaven forbid, senors! We are no French duellists, who are mad enough to make four or six lives answer for the sins of two. This gentleman and I have quarrel enough between us, I suspect, to make a right bloody encounter.”

“The dependence is good enough, sir,” said Cary, licking his sinful lips at the thought. “Very well. Rapiers and shirts at three tomorrow morning—Is that the bill of fare? Ask Sir Richard where, Atty? It is against punctilio now for me to speak to him till after I am killed.”

“On the sands opposite. The tide will be out at three. And now, gallant gentlemen, let us join the bowlers.”

And so they went back and spent a merry evening, all except poor Rose, who, ere she went back, had poured all her sorrows into Lady Grenville’s ear. For the kind woman, knowing that she was motherless and guileless, carried her off into Mrs. St. Leger’s chamber, and there entreated her to tell the truth, and heaped her with pity but with no comfort. For indeed, what comfort was there to give?

Three o’clock, upon a still pure bright midsummer morning. A broad and yellow sheet of ribbed tide-sands, through which the shallow river wanders from one hill-foot to the other, whispering round dark knolls of rock, and under low tree-fringed cliffs, and banks of golden broom. A mile below, the long bridge and the white walled town, all sleeping pearly in the soft haze, beneath a cloudless vault of blue. The white glare of dawn, which last night hung high in the northwest, has travelled now to the northeast, and above the wooded wall of the hills the sky is flushing with rose and amber.

A long line of gulls goes wailing up inland; the rooks from Annery come cawing and sporting round the corner at Landcross, while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly along to find their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants and partridges are clucking merrily in the long wet grass; every copse and hedgerow rings with the voice of birds, but the lark, who has been singing since midnight in the “blank height of the dark,” suddenly hushes his carol and drops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above the heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mown hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed wreaths and fresh wet sand. Glorious day, glorious place, “bridal of earth and sky,” decked well with bridal garlands, bridal perfumes, bridal songs,—What do those four cloaked figures there by the river brink, a dark spot on the fair face of the summer morn?