Mary Stewart Daggett

“ Philip watched the maneuvers of the battleship from the shore, at the foot of the hotel. His glasses were strong, and he could make out regular disciplined movements of men on board. What a life, he thought. To be always waiting for war, ready for action in any part of the world, regardless of human personal ties. The monster breasting waves seemed as horrible as it was majestic. The man who was once a priest had never wished to be a soldier. This morning he sensed the command to draw anchor, felt the significance of carnage for the sea, saw the ship move. ”

“ The positive current of her magnetic will, the plausibility of her conviction, above all, her tenderness, seemed a divine anodyne for Philip's sinking soul. Yet he dared not hope. The shaft of disgrace had been sunk too straight. He was too ill to resist remorse; too weak to deny the penalty for broken vows; too hopeless to defy authority which had thrust him down and trodden upon his self-respect. On the verge of fatal prostration, no sins were blacker than his own. Darkest of all appeared a selfish love forced upon innocent Isabel. Dishonored man that he was, she must share his shame. ”

“ Mariposilla held in her hands, which trembled, the silver shrine, containing the pictures of the beautiful girl.
"You love her not?" she repeated in an ecstasy of doubt; her voice gradually rising in joy at the sweet denial she had forced from the lips of her lover.
Her head was still in profile, but the long lashes, that had lifted to disclose her rapture, now dropped like a sable fringe upon her precious secret, while she listened in silent contentment to the deep undertone assurances of the man by her side. ”

“ Yet I blame not Mariposilla; for she saw not my husband, Don Arturo. Her life was too late to know of his goodness and beauty. I could forgive always her thoughtless indifference, if only sometimes she would weep when I show her the riding jacket embroidered with gold, and the botas of exceeding richness, once worn by her dear father. But she is cold, and understands not what she has lost. She would even profane the precious shawls of her grandmother, urging that some be sold to envious Americans for gold!"
Poor Doña Maria! ”

“ Isabel no longer held her place at Philip's bedside. She was virtually banished from her husband's room. The courage which she had evinced during previous weeks seemed to be going fast. Now she hardly dared to hope. A silent house already took on the atmosphere of disaster. Even Reginald was not permitted to shout in the garden. And withal spring was at hand, seemingly to brighten the whole world, outside of Philip's closed apartments. The sap of fresh life ran in the veins of every living thing in the valley, on the foothills, above in the mountains. ”

“ When the edges of its petals burned with fire, I knew that Mariposilla, too, glowed with hope and ecstasy. When the fog smote sullenly the golden heart of the Ophir, I felt without looking that the girl, too, was pale, tortured with jealousy, and indefinite forebodings. Thus for me there will always remain the fancy that between this rose and the Spanish child there existed a kinship—a subtile sympathy, that each unconsciously felt when the other was near.
Looking back over those happy days, they seem fraught with no ordinary conditions. ”

“ Isabel bent and touched her son's soft brow. His relaxed beauty thrilled her. As often before, the boy reminded her of Bellini's sleeping child—the one lying across the Madonna's lap—in the Academy at Venice. She had boldly rebelled that the wonderful picture was unstarred in the great master's collection of holy children. To-night her mother-heart still deplored an arbitrary test of art. She drew aside a curtain, gazing upward to the sky. A star too brilliant for the moon's effacement looked down, while seemingly no erring human judgment could check a heavenly tribute to her sleeping boy. ”

“ As Christmas approached, I found myself anticipating the festal time with a restored interest as keen as the feigned enthusiasms of the previous holiday season had been unbearable. But three weeks remained of the old year, and already the new one seemed full of promises.
As I watched Marjorie and Mariposilla romp like kittens upon the Bermuda grass, I wondered if my heart could ever ache again with the old, tiresome pain. The morning was glorious, and I felt myself buoyed above my most ardent hopes. Our new life was an elixir, that drove away sad thoughts, while it invited pleasant memories. ”

“ Philip was already hers. She would make him forget, help him to consecrate his talents anew to art and letters. He must write books and be glad that he was no longer a priest, bound with forms and obsolescent vows. His brilliant mind should be free to develop, his manhood to grow unrestrained. Isabel's own unorthodox view was so wholly conceived out of intellect and evolving mercy that retribution and remorse were not pictured as possible punishments reserved for an apostate Catholic once a priest.
Her one thought was to make the man who had suffered from an almost fatal mistake happy. ”

“ I remembered, long afterwards, how Sidney Sanderson had forgotten to look bored; and how both he and Mariposilla had neglected everyone in the room but each other, like two happy children in their devotion.
Not once again while we remained in the hotel did I see a shadow upon Mariposilla's brow. In vain did Mrs. Wilbur endeavor to excite her jealousy. The child was too happy to doubt. Each moment she grew more beautiful, maturing almost as we watched her, with the ripening influences of her strong first love. ”

“ Isabel's earlier freshness remained; and the large purple hat securely veiled for touring seemed duly created to protect her golden hair. The older ladies were kind and the little woman of the foothills enjoyed the short spin through the avenue of peppers to paddocks beyond.
"You never lock your door?" Mrs. Hartley questioned.
"No, indeed. No one would think of stealing up here! Every one is honest where every one sleeps, eats, and lives out of doors."
"Of course," said Isabel. "How wonderful this upland country is; I envy you a home beneath the mountains. How close they are!" ”

“ Ned Hartley flushed at his mother's philistine candor.
"In this particular room, with its embrasures, dull richness, almost medieval simplicity, I should hardly dare to shine any landlady's cathedral candlesticks," said Mrs. Doan. The humor in her remark was not too plain.
"How charmingly the whole outside approaches into the very house," Miss Lewis put in. "There are no grounds in town quite so appealing. I love dear wild spots in a garden when vegetation admits of them. Where everything grows the year round it is a mistake to be too tidy with Nature." ”

“ Pure roses deck their throats and glistening arms, while in their hands they bear tall tapers in rose candlesticks. Like a beautiful vision they pass and repass, the waving palms and shining tapers telling a sweet story of youthful devotion to a poetic religion. Then the music deepens, the fickle lights intensify, and the old bells ring sadly and solemnly the chimes of a picturesque and dead past.
As the White Roses drifted away, the scene suddenly changed.
In a blaze of light and music, the Silver Harlequin now called before the Goddess an array of dainty color and grace. ”

“ Isabel answered. A shadow passed over her face. She was at last thinking of Philip.
Miss Lewis impulsively drew in her horse, springing to her seat like a boy. "Come on," she begged, "I have something else to show you." She stripped off her glove, holding up her hand. "Is it not a beauty?" A black opal surrounded with canary diamonds flashed in sunlight. "I chose the ring myself," she confessed. "I have always been wild over black opals, have always intended to have one when I settled down for life." ”

“ Even the Doña Maria grew artlessly gay, appearing to forget that the grandmother might soon awaken, to be cared for like an infant, and that Christmas was now but a colorless counterfeit of years past.
"Ah!" exclaimed the sympathetic mother, when Mariposilla held up for admiration a little silver bracelet; "it is almost like the happiness of the old days. Not the same; for the Spanish gave not gifts, but the good cheer is most sweet. I grieve," she continued, "that the Señora and my child should not have known those once glad days—now gone forever. ”