Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1892-01-16

q
A wounded shoulder might not, per
haps, be thought good preparation for
period of perfect enjoyment, but to the
end of his DAYS Derwent will never have
any doubt that it proved 50 to him
Never will he fail to look back on the
fortnight at Mirahores that followed his
recovery as the one enchanted time OF
his life-thas one lingering within the
magic portals Of fairyland which al
most all men or women know at some
point on the journey Of life. Generally
it is not for long that any one fingers
within those gates, and when once they
are closed upon him who issues forth, he
NAV wander far and wide without ever
finding his way thither again. But
while he is there everything else that
the world holds is orgotten--sometimes
even faith and duty-and If there are
any drawbacks to enjoyment, any pin
pricks in the spell of enchantment, he
has no recollection Of them afterward.
Derweut in especial would have been
quite positive that there was nothing
of the kind for him in those magic
days-days Of literal as well as meta
phorical sunshine and flowers When
ever he recalled them, he would see the
deep sapphire sky looking down, he
would hear the musical plash of foun-
tains and inhale the fragrance of opening
blossoms, Pictures would rise before
his eyes, now of cool. shadowy rooms
with shining floors and arabesqued
walls now of the courts with their pill
Jared arches and the oriental looking
servants who glded back and forth, of
the shadowy yistas of the gardens, of
the rich splendor of the chapel, and amid
all these varied scenes one central figure
always visible-a graceful, gracious fig
ure, with noble, princesslike ways and
hand ever open TO help and to give.
For this may be said for him, that if,
despite his valiant resolutions, he was
soon hopelessly in love with Dona Zarifa,
it was less with the enchantment of her
beauty-though this grew upon him day
by day, as only real beauty does-than
with the deeper charm of character
which was revealed to him in her life,
like the open page of book full of no
Dle thoughts and poetic words, He had
never imagined anything at once so sim
pie and so elevated as this character APP
peared. The communicating influence of
the world seemed hardly to have breathed
upon it, and the lowering standards of
the world had no place in mind which
had been trained in the highest school of
thought and feeling. Indeed, somewhat
to his surprise, he found the whole at
mosphere Of the house unworldly in the
extreme. 1t was evident that to Don
Maurizio his great wealth was chiefly
valuable for the power it gave him of
doing much good-how much it was
only through chance references of Padre
Francisco that Derwent learned-while
Dona Iarifa seemed to give no thought
whatever to her brilliant social position
with regard to the opportunities which
it offered for pleasure and adulation.
The pride, almost verging on hauteur,
which had struck him as expressed by
her face when he saw it first was, he
found, not that ignoble pride which is
allied to vanity, but the higher pride
that, dwelling in elevated regions of SEN
timent, can stoop to nothing lowering
or even frivolous.
And yet how simple and charming
she wasl Trained chiefly by her father,
and accustomed, therefore, to more lib
erty than falls to the lot of most Span
ish bred girls, she was frankly and
entirely at ease with one whom she re-
garded as a stranger with special
claim upon their kindness from the fact
OF his having come to harm at their
gates. 1t was a kindness that not even
a man of duller perception than Der
went could for moment have misun-
derstood, and he had no desire to misun-
derstand it. 81 am fool. " he confessed