The herald and mail. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1873-188?, 1874-03-20

And SO, Maria, said Gilmour, OF
the evening preceding his departure
"our pleasant visit comes to an end
Well, 1 have improved my Spanish, anC
you, little Madonna, if ever the fate
take you to England, will recognize tht
abbeys and the churches from my de
scriptions."
Maria Ignacia did, not reply, bu
stopped to pick up an abalone shell
which, wet and sheeny, lay in the SAND
at her feet.
"And now, Maria, I have only one
request to make, which our charming
acquaintance warrants. It has three
parts, however, SO1tUenir from this
dark hair of yours; letter, now and
then, when you weary of your Monte.
rey lovers, and wish to talk to me across
the waters f; and-a kiss"
Still no answer from the girl. who,
with eyes cast down, strolled along by
his side.
"Then I shall take it for granted
that my prayers prevail, Maria |"
Her soft eyes were raised to his, and
he was surprised to find how pale the
face was, and how moist the rounded
cheek. He raised her lips to his with
| half sigh, and then, as if a new
thought had struck him, said, abruptly,
| half to himself and half to her
Good God it can't be so, Maria
Tell me-dc you love me?"
The wonderful passion in the full
brown eyes, so tender and despairing,
told him all f; and then, like a foolish
young man, he took her in his arms, and
swore all tie oaths that all lovers have
so often sworn and so often broken !;
and when they strolled back over the
sands, Maria's tears were gone, and
James GilmOur clasped the hand of his
promised wife.
This was all the romance in Maria's
life. The next day the Delight sailed,
and for ten years neither ship nor su-
percargo were heard of in Monterey.
But she never married. She had a
strange way of every evening walking to
the hilltop where the old fort stood, and
looking wistfully out across the water
then sorrowfully and resignedly return
ing to her home, nursing her invalid
and sour-tempered mother, and train
ing the roses about the adobe walls.
On this Christmas eve, Maria Igna-
cia, kneeling before her old fashioned
engraving of the Madonna, thought of
LllO LII D0Gul0u01 ago.
and wondered sorrowfully If James
Gilmour was enjoying in his English
home the Chtistmas-tree and the mis-
tletoe, and all those games he had told
her of when they had walked on the
sands ten years ago. And then her
thoughts went back to that June even
ing when he kissed her lips and called
her his wife.
Boom boom through the still night
air.
Marie opened her window and looked
ont. A party of Portuguese wha'ers
went rapidly by, and she learned from
their excited ordinations that ship
had gone ashore on the Point Pinos
rocks.
"May God and the Virgin succor
them p she murmured piously, as he
hurried to wrap her shawl around her,
and was soon out in the sire, t.
Everyone was astir. Men on horse
back With ropes rode fHriously along
the beach and toward the Point; the
whalers manned their boats, set their
sails, and sped before the blast through
the moonlit water. They were all too
late. The cruel, pointed rocks had
torn the ill-fated vessel to fragments !;
and the breakers dallied with spar and
mast, now finging them high up on the
beach, and again drawing them back to
hurl them once more against the brown
cliffs. But not a single body did the
waves throw up that night.
Christmas day dawned, aud when
Maria Ignacia Gomez looked from her
window down to the crescent beach,
she saw crowd of men standing about
They lifted it up and bore
it through the street, and to her door,
for hers was the house nearest the
beach.
Is he dead ?" she asked, fearfully.
"When we first saw him, said a
whaler, che was clinging to spar, and
before we got the boat out he was
washed ashore"
They laid him on a bed. His dark
beard was full of sand and weeds, and
a white froth issued from his lips; a
finely built man-handsome, no doubt,
when those eyes, now staring so blindly,
had light and life, and those well-cut |
lips moved and smiled.
Maria-Maria, what ails yOu?'
She was standing by the bedside, her
hands crossed over her breast; her |
eyes as fixed and vacant as the dead be- |
fore her.
go, my beloved !' she moaned, lay |
ing her white face on his bruised and |
stained breast; cat last, after so many |
years" And then she smoothed back |
the tangled hair, and wiped the foam
from the lived lips, and Strengthened |
out the limbs of him who had come to
seek her after so long.
For it was her great consolation that
be had been true even to death. They |
buried him behind the old fort, and |
Maria took up the thread of her life
again. And now the roses were doubly |
dear to her, for they were for his grave.