The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-07-07
CHAPTER XIX.

Larz passed the iron gates fanked by in
verted guns, each with a cannon-ball on top.
A quiet as of the grave brooded over the
long inclosure, and the somber fancies
engendered by the place and hour were
deepened by the picture presented on the
balcony of the cottage hospital hard by the
gate, where group of valetudinarian sol
diers sat in respondent silence. One of
these military invalids bore bandage bound
across his battered pate; another had both
ar ms in sling; the visage of the third was
indued with that leaden pallor which
indubitably announces not-far- distant dis
solution. A soldier physician, with the red
cross on his sleeve, moved with gentle tread
among the patients.
Larz left the graded pathway which lay
beneath q yaulted roof of verd ure, formed
by the dropping branches of double lines of
trees He never previously had been at the
Arsenal, but remembered with a shudder
that in the old penitentiary here the court
martial which condemned to q summary
but well-merited death the heartless assas-
sins of the great Lincoln.
The sun was sinking, his long FURNISHED
rays piercing the silver expanse of the Poto
mac as he fell. Larz stood entranced on the
bank of the exquisite river, his sense of
beauty intensely gratifed by the perfect
loveliness of land and waterscape at this
point of Paradise. Every year crowds of
Americans uncomfortably jostle elbows
along the stretches of the Riviera, and
loudly laud the beauty of the various views.
The sea panorama at Monte Carlo, the yis-
tas at Nice, Cannes, Mentone and San Reno
are brilliant examples of natures love for
color, it is true; but as with all semi-tropi-
cal localities there hangs over
THESE MEDITERRANEAN PORTS
certain torpor which paralyses half their
charm. Beautiful as our dreams Of Heaven
is the fair earthly garden, the Isle of Wight;
and looking across the translucent waters,
one there beholds not mere painted cloth
of tideless blue, but dimpling sea which
sports like happy youth, floating countless
ships to worthy business of their own;
while, for the invalid, there blow from off
the Solent's sun-tipped waves reviying
breezes which carry glorious health in every
inhalation.
AS a companion-piece in beauty look at
the confluence of waters at Greenleaf's
Point. Here the Anacostia meets and min
giles with the Potomac, and on the peninsula
formed by their streams stands the Arsenal.
APPLY chosen is the site of this factory of
ordnance. The greatest ships could hither
HE and receive such munitions Of war as
might be required by National exigencies.
May they never be called to take that MUIR
derous freight! Horrible war!
"Were half the power that fills the world with
terror
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and
courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were need Of arsenals and forts"
Well said, wise Longfellow.
Larz feared the fates were against him,
and that he should obtain no glimpse of the
beautiful girl he had come to seek. Sud-
denly, however, behind a'clump of trees he
espied that fair object of his search.
Christabel was seated upon what seemed
to be the rejected body of fieldpiece. Be-
assumed an attitude of
UNCONVENTIONAL REPOsE.
Her back against tree, her face turned to-
ward the sky, she had thrown one hand be-
hind her head, while with the other she
clasped the bent knee of her right leg-the
left was pendulous. The beauty of the sub
ject, the freedom of her posture, the masses
of her drapery, the harmony of the trees as
background the accessory of the dismantled
gun-carriage made up a magnificent COM
position-one which recalled to the mind of
Beverley the admired paintings of the Royal
Academician Moore. He stopped, held capt
i've partly by the beauty Of the picture,
partly by his fear of intruding upon her
presence, unheralded by any sound.
She must have felt his proximity by in
tuition, for quite suddenly she sat upright,
and then arose and walked toward him.
A wild joy pervaded every fiber of mis-
being He hurried forward and grasped her
extended hand. q
is an apology needed for following you
here?" he asked.
"An Apology" she repeated, in surprise.
"Why, no; certainly not; these grounds do
not belong to me-"
"And if they did-would you exclude me
from them, Christabel?"
The vacnity of your lovers!
She smiled gravely.
Alone! The lovers paradise, solitude for
two! What man whose stars are the lumi-
nous eyes of bewitching woman ever failed
to feel the situation otherwise than as
delicious privilege?
"Mr. Beverley" she began.
"Ah, don't call me Mr.. Beverley" he in
terrupted.
"No? Why not?"
at seems so formal"
Sand pray what should call your"
81 wish you would call me Larz-or my
mothers pet name, Lal; or if not these, why
not plain Beverley, as school-fellows address
each other in old England?"
~ am not your mother nor your school
fellow"
"No Chris!abel; but you are the woman
I love-"