The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1898-03-14

NO TWO children could be more gu1Ie-
lessly, unaffectedly happy than this
girlish woman and her husband. After
their marriage they lived in a pretty
house at Tunbridge Wells, where. by
the way there was quite a unique por
trait gallery. 1t consisted of an al
most endless number of portraits of
one person, and that person the lady of
the house. She herself had nothing to
do with it, but it belonged to her hus-
band, and formed frieze all around
his room.
We talked of stage life, and Mrs. De
Navarro expressed her absolute dislike
to the life of an actress in the most de-
cided way. Long before she had given
up acting, she said, she had felt the
holloHness of it all to the full. The
glamor and glitter might please at
first, but they could not satisfy for
any length of time. They were not
enough; in fact they We're nothing, and
less than nothing, to any one who dc
not think all life was nothing but
farce. And, oh, the inexpressible re-
lief, the happiness, the calm, the peace
of the simple, quiet life they were now
leading! Mrs. De Navarro's face
beamed as she talked about their life
their unconventional roannings, their
simple pleasures their love for music
and art, and their friendly intercourse
with kindred spirits. But what struck
me most was the beautiful devotion to
their religion, the reverence with which
they SPOKE of it, and the evident part
it played in their everyday lives.
short time afterward Mrs. De Navarro
wrote to me- and / observed that ner
letters We're just as spontaneous, as
impulsively friendly and as unaffected
as the writer herself.
The solitude deux, which Mr.. and
Mrs De Navarro found so congenial,
does not seem to have palled yet. For
years they lived the same free, uncon-
ventional life, pitching their tent here
and there, while the villa at Tunbridge
Wells remained the pied terre where
they could turn when they wanted to
be within their own four walls. But
they remained great travellers, being
very fond of nature in all her different
aspects. Now you might hear of them
in a place in rural England, which lay
very far off the beaten travellers track,
and again you might write, hoping TO
see them, and the answer came: I'VE
dEe just Oil ICI CpdiH anu HUN tiACAO
to other parts of the Continent" Never
a word of longing to be back in public
life, and always the same intense
thankfuness that that chapter of life
was closed.
1t is the same still. A little more
than a year ago Mr.. and Mrs. De Ma
varro We're staying at Wimbledon, and
I went to see them and pay my re-
spects to a certain Senior Jose de Ma
varro, just four weeks old on the day
| saw him in his white cot his tiny
fists against the warm pink cheeks.
There will, perchance, be less roam
ing now that son and heir has come
to stay at the picturesque old house
that stands in a quaint garden in the
country. But for all that, there will
never be q thought of stage life as a
possible attraction, Notwithstanding all
the recent rumorS to the contrary. For
it was with more determination than
ever that Mrs. De Navarro said to me
after we had been looking at little
Jose: Life is somethink greater and
better than stage excitement and adj
miration. There is for instance, that
boy upstairs, tiny mite though he is.
And there are so many, many things
one is interested in. One of my con-
slant delights is singing and music.
and as soon as I am quite strong again
I hope to do 2 great deal of singing. /
always loved it, especially oratorio
music. But stage life-no, never, never
again" And I thought, as Mrs. De
Navarro reclined on her couch, with
the soft lace and clinging folds of a
pale blue tea-gown falling about her,
that I had never seen her look more
beautiful-Young Woman.