Presto

“ The yellow boy, Ally, was heaping wood on the fire.
'How do you do, aunty?' said Preston, as we drew up at the rickety gate.
'Right smart, massa, right smart,' replied the woman; then turning round and recognizing the Squire, she added: 'Oh, massa Preston, am dat 'ou? Oh! I'se so 'joiced 'ou got Ally; I'se so 'joiced! De Lord hear my prayer, massa—de Lord hear my prayer. I feel like I die wid joy, de Lord so good ter me. Oh, He'm so good ter me!'
'The Lord is good to all who love Him; He never fails those that trust in Him,' said Preston, solemnly. ”

“ Preston's mother. He himself has invariably been polite to people at my dinners and he dances decidedly well; and, moreover, my dear, he is one of those almost unique men who pay party calls.' Come now," she laughed, "the only real knowledge which she could give us of you—to absolutely satisfy Mr. Dunneston and you, too—would be just about as vital as that, wouldn't it?" ”

“ Dr. Gray had said that at once when Flaxie had led him out to the cage to show him the poor, stiff little body, and he saw the flakes of green soaked off from the sides of the drinking-pan and floating on the water.
So really Preston was the murderer. Poor Preston! Didn't he hang his head for shame? And, as for Bert, he hadn't been near Snowball for two whole days; he had been on the sofa all that time with earache and toothache.
"Does you feel orfly?" said little Flaxie. "You going to cry?"
"Yes, I feel orfly; but boys don't cry," replied Preston, trying to whistle. ”

“ Preston's boarding-place. He rang the bell and asked to see him.
“You have been here before this evening?” said the servant.
“Yes.”
“Then you know the room. You can walk right up.”
Paul went upstairs and knocked at Mr. Preston's room. He was bidden to come in, and did so.
Mr. Preston looked up with surprise.
“I suppose you are surprised to see me,” said Paul, rather awkwardly.
“Why, yes. I did not anticipate that pleasure quite so soon,” said Mr. Preston, smiling.
“I am afraid it won't be a pleasure, for I bring bad news.”
“Bad news?” repeated the gentleman, rather startled. ”

“ Kirke has promised to look into our affairs, and I shall need you.'
'Yas, master Robert,' replied the black; and, mounting the horses, Preston and I rode off to the mansion.
CHAPTER X.
Mrs. Preston and master Joe were on the piazza awaiting us, and in the doorway we were met by the younger children. Preston lifted one of them upon his shoulder, and taking another in his arms, led the way to the supper room. However disturbed might be my friend's relations with the outer world, all was peace by his cheerful fireside. No man was ever more blessed in his home. ”

“ Sheepshanks to himself, when he heard of his successor's affability, and sociability, and amiability, and a variety of other agreeable 'ilities,' from the friends whom the old steward still retained at Hollingford.
'Preston's not a man to put himself out for nothing. ”

“ They said, "You ain't a bit to blame for getting mad, Preston. It's pretty plain who killed your rabbit. Wonder how Bert Abbott'd like it if you should give a sling at Old Brownie? 'Twould be no more'n fair!"
"That's so," said Preston, growing angrier and angrier, as they talked over his wrongs, till it seemed to him he couldn't stand it [78] another minute without revenging himself on Bert.
"If he kills my rabbit, why shouldn't I kill his?" he argued with himself, stealing round by Aunt Jane Abbott's on his way home from school at noon. ”

“ A day or two later he was missed but the fact was afterwards known that he was at Spring Valley, the county town where Miss Preston lived and he was forgiven. A week afterwards he was missed again, but this time for a longer period, and then a pathetic letter arrived from Sacramento for the storekeeper's wife.
"Would you mind," wrote Miss Pinkey Preston, "asking some of your boys to come over here to Sacramento and bring back Bones? I don't mind having the dear dog walk out with me at Spring Valley, where every one knows me; but here he does make one so noticeable, on account of his color. ”

“ Andrew Preston? He is a wealthy gentleman, who lives on Madison avenue, between Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth streets.”
“Not personally. I know him by reputation.”
“Will he be satisfactory?”
“Entirely so.”
“He knows me well,” said Paul. “I think he will be willing to stand security for me. I will come back in a day or two.”
Paul took the ring, and left the store. He determined to call that evening on Mr. Preston, and ask the favor indicated.
CHAPTER XVII MR. FELIX MONTGOMERY
Paul had an errand farther uptown, and, on leaving Tiffany's walked up as far as Twenty-third street. ”

“ In August he gave notice that a plot for a descent upon Ireland was being concocted in France against Charles, and he employed spies to collect information on the subject. The king was not much disturbed, and ordered one of Preston's spies out of his presence as a liar. In September Preston presented a strongly worded memorial to the French king ‘touching his seizing upon the city of Orange, looking on it as done to himself’ (ib. i. 221) . In October 1683 the Earl of Sunderland by the king's commands gave Preston directions to let the ministers in France know ‘what a very ill man Dr. ”

“ Nobody but an acrobat will voluntarily spend years at such a difficult mechanical puzzle as the keyboard, and so we have to take our impressions of Beethoven’s sonatas from acrobats who vie with each other in the rapidity of their prestos, or the staying power of their left wrists. ”

“ Yes, Chata, could I have found you to-day, you would have known all. Ask him what you like—it will please him. Oh, he is most considerate. Did he not show that by taking me into his confidence? Yes, yes, you are right; insist upon knowing all from him, and you shall tell me: who could understand, or sympathize so well? But as you love me and value the safety of Rafael, not a word to him or Doña Feliz.—Rosario! what an impatient one! What is there to see? If there is commotion in the street, keep back from the windows. Ay, who would have thought the troops would pass this way? ”

“ This thought indeed entered the mind of a man who riding through the drizzling rain caught a glimpse of the unusual light through the unguarded doorway, and reining his horse gazed curiously in. At first the place seemed to him full of women and jaded beasts; then he saw there were but four of each, and that one of the human creatures was a man,—a priest. The women,—good heavens! they were the Señora Doña Isabel Garcia, and the girl whom he had once seen under circumstances almost as extraordinary,—she whom he knew as the daughter of Ramirez and the foster-child of Don Rafael. ”

“ On one occasion, indeed, we do find him telling the king, that, "if his majesty does not soon come to the Netherlands, he must withdraw from them." [576] This seems to have been a sudden burst of feeling, as it was a solitary one, forced from him by the extremity of his situation. It was much more in character that he wrote afterwards to the secretary, Perez: "I am so beset with dangers on every side, that most people give me up for lost. But I mean to live as long, by the grace of God, as I can; and if they do take away my life, I trust they will not gain everything for all that." ”

“ Suddenly he laid his hand upon the gatekeeper’s arm and muttered hoarsely, “Kill me Pedro! See, I have no sword. If thou wilt not for vengeance, do it for love. You loved her,—for her sake end my misery!”
Pedro laid the reliquary in his hand. “If it should not be true?” he said doggedly of the faded silk. “Oh, was it for this I bore so many years the mocking silence of Doña Feliz and my mistress? No, no! it cannot be. Open this. ’Twas on her bosom when she came into my hands. The niña Herlinda promised me a token. It will be found there,—there in the blessed reliquary. ”

“ Santa Maria! who would have thought such things of the niña Herlinda?”
“Be silent!” cried Chinita, with a tardy repentance of her confidence. “How do I know that I am not the worst of evil thinkers, and a fool, a very fool? Look thou, Florencia, it is thou who shall discover the truth for me. Pedro is gone; perhaps he never knew it. The Tio Reyes must know; but where is he? Yet I must know. Oh, I could bear the truth from Feliz, from Doña Isabel; but they are as silent and as sorrowful as the image of the Madre Dolores. It is thou, Florencia, who must help me. ”

“ Who ever heard of a godchild drawing sword against his sponsor? It should be against his father or brother rather. Go to, Pepé, you and I know nothing of Puro or Mocho. Bah! they know not the difference one from the other themselves; but we do know Ramirez and Gonzales, and it is the first that I love. What are you frowning at, Pepé? Oh! oh! oh! you are jealous, as you used to be of Pancho and Juan and Gabriel! What an idea! Ha! ha! ha!”
“Why do you laugh so loudly?” asked Doña Isabel across the corridor, not displeased to see her merry. ”

“ The king of Naples, and Antonio the false brother, repented the injustice they had done to Prospero; and Ariel told his master he was certain their penitence was sincere, and that he, though a spirit, could not but pity them.
'Then bring them hither, Ariel,' said Prospero: 'if you, who are but a spirit, feel for their distress, shall not I, who am a human being like themselves, have compassion on them? ”

“ There is something far greater than that; but while you believe him to be your father, I will not talk to you of avenging myself. I should be a brute indeed to add a feather’s weight to your trouble. Do not think of that again; but believe me, there is some mystery neither of us understands. The truth may be far from what you think it. I will demand it of Don Rafael, of Doña Feliz—they must know. ”

“ Thou wouldst not love me,” 277answered the young man. “And what care I whether I am poor or rich, ranchero or soldier? It is all one now that thou art with Doña Isabel. Why, if thou wert her child she could not be more choice of thee. Those who ate from the same plate and drank from the same bowl with thee are less than the dogs who followed thee;” and he would have kicked, had it been near enough, the cur which had been Pedro’s, and which like many others had the undisputed right to the corridor, and with patient obstinacy chose to lie at Chinita’s door. ”

“ He selected stirring epochs and their prominent men, the pivots of certain times, upon whom the affairs of two worlds turned at critical periods,—the great warders who stood at the portals of America and Europe in the sixteenth century. Thus, Ferdinand and Isabella, Cortez, Pizarro, Charles V., and Philip II., wonderfully as they revive in the books of Prescott, exquisite in accuracy, harmonious style, and enamelled finish, are but beautiful cabinet-pictures of the princes and heroes of the age. The Life of a Nation requires a taller and wider canvas, a bolder and broader brush. ”

“ Here are Refugio and Teresa and Florencia will nurse it for me. It will want for nothing.” A chorus of voices answered him: “We will all be its mother.”—“Give it to me when it cries, and I will nurse it.”—“The Saints will reward thee, Pedro!”—in the midst of which, in answer to a call from above, Doña Feliz hastened away, saying, “Nothing could be better for the present. Come, Rafael, you are wanted. I will write to Doña Isabel, Pedro; she will doubtless do something when you are tired of it. There is, for example, the asylum at Guanapila.” ”

“ Chata, the supper is ready; the grandfather is angry that thou art so long in the garden! Oh, here thou art!”
The two girls encountered each other in the dusk. Rosario threw her arms around the truant. “How cold thou art!” she said. “Hast thou seen a ghost here alone? Bless me! one would think the General Ramirez had brought the plague with him. My mother has shut herself up, and when I went to her door to beg her to tell me whether she was ill, she answered me, ‘The world is all ill. Go dress saints, my child, it is all that is left to thee!’ What could she have meant? ”

“ Had not he said to Pedro the night before, when the Señor Don Rafael had told them that the General Vicente Gonzales was in El Toro, that for a word he himself would go to him there; and doubtless Pedro had stolen away alone, like the surly fox that he was. But the saints be praised, the road was open to one man as well as another.
“Hush!” said one in a warning tone; “though Pedro may have a fancy for a cleft head or broken bones, must we all cry for the same? Go to thou Pepé! thou art scarce old enough to leave the shade of thy mother’s reboso. ”

“ Girls are weaving new linen at the loom, and women bleaching it on the river’s shingle. The Signor Prevosto is himself again and has ceased to [182] lament the fearful consumption of beans and pumpkins—no lavish hospitality will be dealt out from the parsonage yet awhile!
Good-bye vain and yet so dearly-prized rejoicings! Good-bye, till next week! The priest works in his garden. His spare form needs no longer be hampered with black gown; his movements have their freedom in the most threadbare of frock-coats, and his eyes may be comfortably shaded by the useful brim of an old straw hat. ”

“ In all the world there should be no other with such hair. Thou hast had good fortune, Pedro, to bring up such a child. She is an angel. Ah, it is as if I had seen her all my life! And thou hast a spirit to match thy face,” she added turning again to Chinita. “Thou canst not brook a wrong. Well, well! we will make common cause; and some day—soon, soon we will stand together before Leon Vallé with such a tale, such a revenge, that even he will sink before it. To think that after all these years, I shall turn against him the dagger with which he has pierced me!” ”

“ Doña Feliz and Pedro started as if they had been shot.
“I came to tell you she is coming,” continued the child. “I was out beyond the granaries, letting my fawn browse on the little hill, and as I was looking toward the gorge I saw a horseman coming, and far behind him was a carriage and many men. Is all ready?” and she glanced around her with the air of a prophetess. “Hark! the courier is in the court now. Doña Isabel will not be long behind him.”
Pedro hastened from the room with an exclamation of alarmed amazement. “Go, go!” cried Feliz. “You are too late!” ”