Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

THE
HEIRESS OF GREENHURST.
An Autobiography.

BY MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS,

AUTHOR OF “FASHION AND FAMINE,” “THE OLD HOMESTEAD,” ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK:

EDWARD STEPHENS, PUBLISHER,

126 NASSAU STREET.

1857.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS,

In the Clerk’s Office of the United States District Court, for the Southern District of New York.

W. H. Tinson, Stereotyper,

43 Centre street.

George Russell & Co., Printers,

61 Beekman Street.

CONTENTS.

DEDICATION.

My Mother:

In dedicating this book to you, I have no choice of words; the memories of a helpless and feeble childhood crowd too closely on my heart for that. From the day when you received me an infant from the arms of a dying sister, down to the calm twilight of your own most useful life, I have a remembrance only of more than motherly kindness and entire affection. My childhood and my youth, with all their joys and tender griefs, are so beautifully blended with thoughts of your household virtues and maternal love, that it is impossible to realize that even partial orphanage was ever known to me.

I once hoped to blend with yours the name of that honored father, who has but lately laid down the burden of almost fourscore years and ten, and gone forth from the faithful affection which surrounded him here, to the more perfect love of heaven. But my father is dead, and in the holy welcome of angels the voice of his own child is hushed. Still, through the golden chain of your love, my mother, this dedication shall yet reach him. With you—who made his old age tranquil almost as the heaven he approached, who went faithfully down to the valley of the shadow of death, giving him up only to the angels that waited there—I leave this homage, that it may be conveyed to him through your nightly prayers.

ANN S. STEPHENS.

New York, May, 1857.

THE HEIRESS OF GREENHURST.

CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST GIFT.

It is my mother’s story that I am about to write—the story of her young life, her wrongs, her sufferings, and the effects of those wrongs, those sharp sufferings as they flowed in fire and tears through my own existence. Her history ran like a destiny through my own. My life is but a prolongation of hers. I have but done what she would have accomplished, had she not been trampled down like a broken flower, in the civilized life with which none of her blood or race could hope to mingle and live.

She was a gipsy of Granada. You may search for her birthplace among the caves that perforate the hill-side to the right, as you gaze down upon Granada from the Alhambra. That hill, honeycombed with subterranean dwellings, and its bosom swarming with human beings, was my mother’s home. Beggars—yes, call them so—a people born to delude and prey upon all other races, these were her companions. She was a gipsy of the pure blood, not a drop, not a taint had ever mingled with the fiery life that glowed in her veins.

Men call me beautiful. And so I am. But compared to my mother, as I remember her, that which I possess is but the light of a star as it pales into the morning, contrasted with the same bright jewel of the sky, when it burns pure and undimmed in the purple of the evening. I have, it is true, eyes like hers, long, black, almond shaped; but English blood has thrown a soft mistiness upon their lightning. My cheeks have a rich bloom; but hers were of a deeper and more peachy crimson, glowing out through the soft creamy tint of her complexion with a warmth that shames comparison. See, I can shake down my hair, and it falls over me like a mantle rolling in heavy black waves far below my waist; but hers swept to the ground. I have seen her bury her tiny foot in the extremity of those raven curls, and press them to the earth while she stood upright, without straightening a single tress. As for her person, you could liken it to nothing of human beauty. An antelope—a young leopardess, an Arab steed of the pure blood—these were the comparisons that flashed to the mind as you watched the movements of that lithe form—those delicate and slender limbs. Imagine, if you can, a being like this, wild as a bird—utterly untamed, her veins burning with that lava fire that seems caught from another world, her every movement an inspiration. Imagine this creature at fourteen years of age roaming beneath the old trees that lie at the foot of the Alhambra, and earning a scant subsistence with her castanets, and her native dance, from the few foreigners who brave the discomforts of Spanish travel to visit the Alhambra.

She was always among those beautiful old trees, haunting them like the birds for shelter and subsistence. Sometimes you might have found her crouching beneath a thicket half asleep, and dreamily listening to the silvery flow of a hundred concealed rivulets, introduced by the Moors into these shady walks. Sometimes she would lie for hours on the banks of the river that flows through the outskirts of these woods, and weave garlands from the wild blossoms so abundant there, crowning herself like a May Queen, and using the waters for a mirror, the only one she had yet seen. But in all this seeming idleness she was ever upon the alert, listening for the sound of wheels, peering through the trees for a view of any chance traveller that might ascend to the ruins on foot; in short, feverish with anxiety to earn bread for her old grandmother, who waited hungrily for it in the caves that yawned upon her from the opposite hill.

One day, when my mother was a little less than fourteen, full-grown as most females of that age are in Spain, yet delicate and slender as I have described, she had come to the Alhambra woods with two or three gipsy girls of her tribe, but wandered away alone as was her habit, searching for wild flowers to compose a garland for her hair. Down in a little hollow that sinks abruptly from the broad avenue leading to the Alhambra, she found a profusion of these sweet stars of the wood, and began to gather them in handsful, forming a drapery from her scant calico robe, and filling it with the fragrant mass in pleasant wantonness, for she had collected blossoms enough to crown half Granada.

She sat down on the ground, and selecting the most dewy buds, began to weave them into a wreath, blending the tints with a degree of taste that would have been pronounced artistic in civilized life. Red, yellow, purple with delicate and starry white blossoms, all flashed through her little hands, blending themselves, as it were, by magic into this rustic crown. Now and then she paused and held the garland up admiringly with a smile upon her lips, and her graceful head turned on one side, half shyly, like a bird’s, as if she were ashamed of admiring her own work.

Her castanets lay upon the grass, and stretching one little naked foot, plump as an infant’s, down to the rivulet that flowed by her, she began to dip it up and down in the sparkling water, carelessly as a bird laves itself in the morning. As the waters rippled over that little foot, breaking up in diamond drops all around, she continued her sweet task, leaning on one side, or bending backward now and then to gather some green sprig or fresh bud that grew within reach.

My poor, poor mother—how little could she guess that the moment so full of sweet repose, while the waters sung and whispered to her as they passed, while the blossoms breathed balm all around, gratifying her senses and her delicate taste at the same moment—how could she guess that moment to be one of destiny to her, the single speck of time on which all her after life depended!

She kept on with her pretty garlands, blending with unconscious taste, a little delicate green, and a few white bells with the rich clusters of crimson, yellow, and blue that predominated there.

When it was finished, she withdrew her foot from the water, that it might not disturb the pure surface—watched the bubbles with a smile as they floated downward, and, bending over the rivulet, wreathed her garland among the rich folds of hair which I have mentioned as so glossy and abundant.

A knot of scarlet ribbon—I know not how obtained, but it was her only finery, poor thing—fastened this floral crown; and after arranging her dress of many-colored chintz, she regarded herself in the water for an instant with smiling admiration. And well she might, for the image thrown back by that tranquil pool was full of picturesque beauty, unlike anything you ever dreamed of even in romance.

A slight noise, something rustling among the neighboring foliage, made her start from that graceful half-stooping position. She looked eagerly around—and there, upon the upper swell of the bank, stood a young man looking at her.

My poor mother had no thought but of the coin she might earn. A cry of glad surprise broke from her lips, and seizing her castanets she sprang from amid the litter of wild flowers that had fallen around her feet, and with a single bound stood before the stranger, poising herself for the national dance.

I cannot tell what it was, but some strange magnetic influence possessed my mother. As her slender limbs were prepared for the first graceful bound, her spirited ankle strained back, and one little foot just ready to spurn the turf, a wonderful fascination came over her. She stood a moment immovable, frozen into that graceful attitude, her eyes fixed upon the stranger’s, her red lips parted in a half smile, checked and still as her limbs. Then the eyelids, with their long, thick lashes, began to quiver, and drooped heavily downward, veiling the fire of those magnificent eyes. The tension slowly left her muscles, and with the castanets hanging loose in her hands, she drooped languidly toward the youth, as a flower bends on its stalks when the sunshine is too warm.

He addressed her in English, but, though she did not understand his words, the very sound of his voice made her shiver from head to foot. He spoke again and smiled pleasantly, not as men smile with their lips alone, but with a sort of heart-bloom spreading all over the face. She looked up, and knew that he was asking her to dance; but she, whose muscles up to that moment had answered to her will, as harp-strings obey the master-touch, found all her power gone. She could not even lift her eyes to meet the admiring glance bent upon her, but shrunk timidly, awkwardly—if a creature so full of native grace could be awkward—away, and burst into tears.

That instant there came leaping up from a neighboring hollow, the half dozen gipsy girls that my mother had forsaken in the woods. On they came like a troop of young antelopes, leaping, singing, rattling their castanets, and surrounding the stranger with smiles, gestures, and sounds of eager glee.

He looked around, surprised and smiling. The scene took him unawares. His heart was brimful of that sweet romance that hovers forever like a spirit about the place, and this picturesque exhibition startled him into enthusiasm. It was like enchantment. The wild poetry of the past acted before him. His dark grey eyes grew brilliant with excitement. He smiled, nay, even laughed gaily, scattering silver among the troop of dark browed fairies that had beset his way. There was something eager and grasping in the manner of these girls as they scrambled for the money, pushing each other aside with lightning flashes of the eye, and searching avariciously among the grass when all had been gathered up.

You could see that the young man was very fastidious from the effect this had upon him. A look of disappointment, tinged with contempt, swept the happy expression from his face; and when they began a new dance, less modest than the preceding, he motioned them to desist. But they were not to be driven away; he had been too liberal for that. They drew back a little, but continued to dance, some moving around him on the avenue, others choosing the turfy bank. Still he beckoned them to desist, but misunderstanding his gestures, they became subdued, threw a more voluptuous spirit into the dance, and the languor that tamed down each movement seemed a portion of the balmy atmosphere, so subtle and enervating was the effect.

But the stranger was no ordinary man. The very efforts that would have charmed others, created a singular feeling of repulsion in him. He turned from the dancing girls with a look of weariness, and would have moved on; but disappointed in the result of the last effort, they sprang into his path like so many bacchantes, making the soft air vibrate with the rapidity and force of their movements. Half clothed—for the garments of these young creatures reached but little below the knees, their slender limbs and small, naked feet exposed in the wild frenzy of their exertions, eager as wild animals who have tasted blood—they beset his way with bolder and more desperate attempts to charm forth a new supply of coin.

In the midst of this wild scene, the young man chanced to turn his eyes upon my mother. She was standing apart, not drooping helplessly as at first, but upright, spirited, with a curve of invincible scorn upon those red lips, and a blush glowing like fire over every visible part of her person. For the first time in her life, she seemed to be aroused to the character of her national dance: for the first time in her life the young gipsy had learned to blush.

The Englishman was struck by her appearance, and made an effort to draw near, but his wild tormentors followed close, and, to free himself, he adroitly flung a handful of small coin far up the avenue. Away sprang the whole group, shouting, leaping, and hustling each other about, as they cleared the distance between themselves and the Englishman.

He approached my mother with a little reluctance, such as a man feels when he tries a new language, and uttered a few words in Spanish.

“Why do you remain behind? There is money up yonder,” he said.

My mother looked up. The tears which she had suppressed still sparkled on her curling eyelashes.

“I do not want money,” she said; “I have done nothing to earn it.”

“And why did you not dance with the rest?”

“I don’t know. It seems to me now that I never have danced like them, and yet, I tried to begin that very dance—tried and could not.”

The blush again burned on her face. She made a movement as if to cover it with her hands, and desisted, ashamed of her new-born modesty.

“And why could you not dance for me as you have for others?”

“I do not know.”

“You have already earned money enough?”

“I have an old grandmother who has not tasted food to-day. She is waiting in patient hunger till I shall bring money from the woods to purchase it. My companions will carry food to their parents—mine must wait.”

“See, I have driven these people away. They did not please me, but you shall give me a dance while they are busy. Here is a piece of good English gold, which will supply your grandame with food during the next fortnight.”

My mother took the gold and examined it with great curiosity. She had never seen so much money at once in her life.

“I—I am to dance before you, and this will be mine?” she said, at last.

“Yes, it will be yours!”

She handed him back the money, took up her castanets, and stepped forth with a sort of haughty grace. Giving her person a willowy bend sideways, she began, the tears starting afresh to her eyes as she made the effort. But the elasticity seemed to have forsaken her limbs: she stopped abruptly and retreated.

“I will not go on,” she said; “I don’t want the piece of gold; I only know the dances that made you drive my companions away.”

There was no acting in this. My poor mother literally could not perform her task, and it was this very failure that charmed the young Englishman. Had she earned the money it would have been given, and she possibly remembered no more; as it was—ah, would to heaven she had earned it—earned it and gone on her way true to her people—true to the blood that never mingles with that of another race without blending a curse with it.

But there was something in my mother’s refusal that interested the Englishman. He was very young, only in his twenty-fourth year, but of mature intellect and strong of mind. Still the fresh and romantic delicacy of youth clung to his feelings. They were both fresh and powerful. The ideal blended with all things. He could never have been a slave to the mere senses, but sensation excited, his poetical nature made even that exquisite. He was not a man to indulge in light fancies, but his imagination and his feelings were both strong, and in these lay the danger.

Love is the religion of a woman educated as my mother had been. In her it seemed like apostasy from the true faith to allow her heart a moment’s resting-place out of her own race. Indeed, she deemed it an impossibility, and thus secure, was all unconscious of the fatal passion that had transformed her very nature in a single morning.

Not half an hour had elapsed since my mother had met the stranger. The dew that trembled on her coronal of wild blossoms still glittered there; the first footprint she had made upon the grass that morning still kept its place. Yet how much time it has required for me to give you an idea of the feelings that grew into strength in that brief time—feelings that vibrated through more than one generation, that made me what I am; for this man was my father.

Be patient, and I will tell you more; for there lies a long history between that time and this, the history of many persons; for did I not say that my life was but a continuation of hers? And I have known much, felt much, suffered. But who that has known and felt, can say that he has not suffered?

“Nay, you have fairly earned the gold,” said the Englishman, bending his now bright and earnest eyes on my mother, with an expression that made every nerve in her body thrill, as if it had been touched to music for the first time—“take it for your grandam’s sake, my poor child!”

What charm possessed my mother? She who had been among the most eager when money was to be obtained—why did she shrink and blush at taking the gold from that generous palm? Why, when she happened to touch his hand in receiving it, did the warm blood leap to each finger’s end, till the delicately curved nails seemed red with some artificial dye? The gold gave her no pleasure at first. It seemed a sacrilege to receive it from him; but after a little it grew precious as her own life. Her grandmother went hungry to bed that night, for the gipsy girl would not part with this one piece of gold. She did not even acknowledge to any one that it had been given her, but hid it away close to her heart, and kept it there through many a sharp struggle that broke that poor heart at last. I have it in my bosom. It was necessary at times that I should feel it grating cold and hard, or something of tenderness would have crept there. I could not have gone through with all that I had to accomplish but for this gold—gold, gold. It is a fine thing to harden the heart with; in many ways men have found it so.

My mother took the money, then, with a faint blush and a smile that lighted up his face into absolute beauty, the young man said, “I see you hesitate; you will not believe the money is fairly earned. Now to set you at rest I will take the wreath you wear as full compensation. It will remind me hereafter of my first day at the Alhambra.”

My mother smiled, and her face kindled up with the pleasure his request had given. She unbound the wreath and presented it to him, ribbon and all.

That ribbon was the only ornament that she had in the world, but she parted with it joyfully; though the diamonds that Queen Isabella sacrificed to Christopher Columbus were not half so precious to their owner as this scarlet snood had been to the gipsy girl.

I have the ribbon too. That piece of gold is suspended to it about my neck—the first gift of my mother—the first gift of my father. He wore the ribbon around his neck at the death-hour. The gold also; alas! it was an awful hour when that piece of gold was laid in my palm.

The Englishman lingered for weeks at the Alhambra. He lived at a little Fonda that stands close beneath the ruins, sometimes spending whole days among the old Moorish remains, at others wandering thoughtfully beneath the stately trees.

My mother had spent her life in those woods. She could not change her habits now, for the love of those cool shadows had become a want of her whole being; but she danced the gipsy dances and sung the gipsy songs no more. Her companions wondered greatly at this, and triumphed over her with a wild glee that would have roused her indignation a few weeks before. Now, she turned from them with a quiet curve of scorn upon her lip, and stole away by herself, weaving garlands, and listening to the hidden waters that chimed their sweet voices in the solitude, whispering a thousand dreamy fancies, which deepened almost into sadness as time wore on.

I know not how often she saw the Englishman during that period. Not very frequently, I am sure; for she had become timid as a fawn, and would sit crouching among the thickets for hours, only to see him pass distantly through the dim veil of the forest leaves.

Night after night she went home from the woods empty-handed, and musing as if in a dream. Her grandame chided her sharply at times, for hunger made her stern. The gipsy girl bore this with surprising meekness, weeping gently, but never urging a word in her own defence, save that she did not know why, but it was impossible to dance as she had done; the strength left her limbs whenever she attempted it.

A week—more than one—went by, and the gipsy girl remained in this inactive, dreamy state. Then a sudden change came over her. She grew animated, the wild passions of her nature kindled up again. You could see that her heart slept no longer. The dove that had brooded there so sweetly had taken wing. She went to the Alhambra early. She left it sometimes after dark, often bringing a little money which she gave the old woman with trembling hands and downcast eyes, that were frequently full of tears.

At this season you could not have looked upon her face without admiration. The bloom upon the sunniest peach suffered in comparison with the rich hues of her cheek. Her eyes were starry in their brightness. You could not speak to her without bringing a smile to her mouth, that brightened it as the sunshine glows upon ripe strawberries. If tears sometimes started beneath these thick lashes, they only served to light up the eyes they could not dim, for every bright drop seemed to leap from a blissful source.

She was quiet though, and said little. You only knew how exquisite was her happiness by the glorious beauty of her face.

Then, all this exquisite joy went gradually out, as you see a lamp fade when the perfume oil burns low. She wept no more blissful tears. Her smile grew constrained, and took a marble paleness. It was singular that no one observed this; that the keen-eyed people of her tribe never suspected what was going on in that young heart—but so it was.

One person of the tribe would not have been thus blinded; for he loved the gipsy girl as only the wild, strong nature of the pure blood can love; but he had gone to attend the annual fair at Seville, and my mother was left to the tempter and her own heart. Much that passed during this time remains a mystery even to me, her child, for in the manuscript that she left, there is hesitation, embarrassment—many erasures and whole sentences blotted out, as if no language could satisfy her—or, as if there existed much that she could not force herself to write. Still, she seemed to linger about this period as if afraid to go on. It was her first love-dream; how could she describe it? Her first step in the crooked way which no human being can possibly make straight. How could she describe that to her own child? Still, much was written, much revealed, that I shall put into form. For my mother was a child of the Alhambra, and there her destiny commenced shaping itself into a fate.

CHAPTER II.
THE SIBYL’S CAVE.

I have spoken of the grandame who was my mother’s only relative. I have a sort of fierce pride in this old woman, and love to trace the Rommany blood that burns in my own heart, back to that weird source; for in her withered veins it grew, like old wine, strong with age and bitter with the hate which our people bore to the Gentiles.

Learned men still cavil about our origin. They gather up scraps of our language, they ferret out our habits, and torture our tradition to establish the various theories, which, after all, must remain theories; for ours is a poverty-stricken people. We have no possession, not even a history. They call us a nation of thieves, and say that even our traditions are stolen. Be it so! at least we are faithful to each other, a boast which the brotherhood of civilization cannot honestly make.

But though wise men have traced us back to Judea, and made us worshippers of idols, we who worship nothing in heaven or on earth, know by the secret sympathies that link us together—sympathies which no Gentile can comprehend—that the blood within our hearts is of another source than the idolaters of Judea.

They say that our traditions are stolen from your Bible; that from the solemn prophecies written there, we have gathered up a belief in our Egyptian origin. But my great grandmother never looked into your Bible. She would have trampled the falsehood under her feet and spit upon it, had any one hinted that in the Gentile language, lay the great secret of her race.

But her faith in the Egyptian descent of our people was like a religion. How it came to her, whether from tradition, fable, fact, or those sorcerers’ arts that made her famous among all our nation, I do not know. Save in those wild sympathies that knit our tribe together, as with bonds of iron, all over the earth, our people have no history. They came like a cloud of locusts sweeping down from the East. It may be one of the curses sent forth to infest the earth after ravaging Egypt. It may be a fragment of the lost tribes. It may be even, as some of our traditions say, that we were sent forth as a punishment for inhospitality to the mother of God and her holy child. There is a wide field for conjecture. Let your wise men guess on. With us, our Egyptian descent is a faith—all the religion that we have!

I know many languages, am learned in historic lore—learned in the great foundation of all history, the Bible. Of that which pertains to my people I have studied long and deeply; yet as my great grandmother, the Gitana, believed, so do I. To her occult wisdom, her subtle sympathies, I have brought all the knowledge to be gathered from the literature of other races.

I have searched your sacred book till my soul has been stirred to its depths with the dark prophecies that foreshadow the scattering of our tribes over the face of the earth. I find the destiny that is now upon us written out in that great book, certain, unmistakable as the thunder-cloud that heralds in a tempest. There is wisdom in that book. Our people should know it better, for much of its grandeur came from Egypt, as we did—Egypt the great mother of learning—the land which gave its wisdom to Moses, and taught the irresolute how to think, act, and suffer.

And we too are of Egypt. Does the Gentile want proof? Let him search for it in the prophecies that he holds sacred. Let him read it in the voluptuous character of our dances, in the unwritten poetry, unwritten because it grows tame and mean in any language but the Rommany. The Gitanos speak their poetry as it swells warm from the heart, for it would grow cold in the writing. Let him search for it where he pleases. We require no proof, better than the mysterious spirit within us. Our hearts turn back to the old land, and we know that it once belonged to us.

My great grandame was no common Gitana. Her husband had been a chief, or count, among the gipsies, during his entire manhood. This was no common dignity, for our people choose their own leaders, and it is seldom that one man’s popularity lasts during a life-time. The Gitano chooses his wife for her talent, her art, her powers of deception; in short, for what you would call her keen wickedness. These are the endowments that recommend the Gitana bride to her lord. It was for these qualities, joined to talents that would have given her a position in any nation, that my ancestor married his wife.

This great grandame of mine was bravely descended, and richly endowed. Talent descends most frequently from the mother, and through the female line she could trace her blood back to that arch sorceress, who wound herself around Maria de Padilla, during her heroic life, and in the end betrayed that noble woman to death, when she fled from Toledo with her son.

Maria de Padilla had offended our ancestress, and she was true to her hate. My great grand-dame wore a pair of ear-rings, massive gold circlets set with great rubies. In her poverty—for in the end she became very poor—these antique ornaments were always about her person. No amount of suffering, no temptation could win them from her, even for a moment. These antique rings had been wrested from the heroine of Toledo, on the night when she disappeared with her Gitana attendant. There was a tradition, that the precious stones with which they were beset, had once been white, but that after the murder, had changed to the blood-red hue which they ever after maintained. I know not how this superstition took birth; but the craft of our Gitana ancestress seemed to descend with the rings, as they came down from that wonderful creature, always through the females, to the old Sibyl who was the grandame of my mother.

I know that the Gitanos are considered as impostors; that they are supposed to practise their arts for coarse gain, and for that only; but this is not always true. No devotee ever put more faith in her saint than the gipsy, who has long exercised her powers of divination, places in the truth of her mysterious art.

It was late in the evening, and old Papita—for thus my ancestress was named—sat in her cave-home waiting the return of her grand-daughter from the Alhambra. Perhaps upon the whole earth there is nothing more repulsive than a very old woman in any portion of southern Europe. The voluptuous atmosphere, the warm sunshine that matures female life so early, seems to mock its own precocious work, by proving how hideous time can render it. But if age makes itself so repulsive among the luxurious women of Spain, those who scarcely draw a breath of that delicious atmosphere which is not heavy with fragrance, how much more hideous must be the old age of a Gitana hid away in the dark hollows of the earth, with rude and insufficient food, clothed in rags, uncared for, held in no higher repute than the foxes who burrow in the earth like themselves, and are scarcely held apart from civilization more than they are?

There was something witch-like in the appearance of my great grandame as she sat alone in her cave that night. A meagre candle shed its light in sickly flickers around a rude niche scooped in the rock, from whence the entire dwelling was cut. The body of this light fell upon the old woman’s head, kindling up a scarlet kerchief that she wore, somewhat in the fashion of a Moorish turban, into vivid brilliancy; but casting the rough features into blacker shadow, till they seemed meagre, dark, and almost as withered as those of an Egyptian mummy. Her claw-like hands were folded over her bosom, and a ring set with some deep green stone cut with Egyptian characters, caught the light like a star; for the setting was of rough massive gold, that seemed heavy enough to break the withered finger, that it covered from joint to joint. A few embers lay upon the stone floor at her feet, the remnants of a fire that had burned low, leaving a thin cloud of smoke still floating in the vaulted roof of the cave.

A low chair of heavy carved wood, the antique plunder of some religious house, served the old woman for a seat; and before her, upon the embers, stood a small bronze vessel, which gave forth a soft odor as its contents simmered sleepily in the dying heat.

Besides these objects, there was little of interest in the dwelling. The cave was scooped from the soft sandstone cliff that forms one side of a ravine, through which the Darro passes before making its graceful sweep around the Alhambra. The walls and ceiling were blended together in a thousand irregular curves and angles, roughly chiselled, and blackened over with smoke. It had no particular form; but sunk into recesses; was cut up into hollows; bulged out in places that should have been corners, and had a dozen angles that promised some definite form, but failed in the performance.

In size it might have covered eighteen or twenty square feet. The floors were of stone, like the walls, for all was cut from one rock; but smoke and long use had so disguised the native material, that it could hardly be guessed at. A few dried herbs were hung in one hollow of the wall; an earthen pot, full of fresh flowers, stood in another; some specimens of coarse pottery occupied a shelf opposite the door, and cooking utensils of heavy iron were huddled in a corner, making the shadows in that portion of the cave still more dense.

The old Sibyl arose, took down the candle, and holding it over the bronze vessel peered into it, muttering to herself. Now the dark mummy-like aspect of her features changed; the eyes, black, firm and large, for age had no power to quench their lightning, illuminated those withered features and gave expression to every wrinkle. Her thin lips parted, and through a weird smile, that made them writhe like disturbed serpents, shot the gleam of her sharp, long teeth, white as ivory, and strong as those of a tiger.

My great grandame in her youth was of middle size; but age had contracted her muscles and warped her sinews, leaving her limbs spare and lean till she was scarcely larger than a child of twelve years. Her head was singularly large, the forehead heavy, the eyes under it burning like coals of living fire; and this disproportion was exaggerated by the heavy red kerchief that I have already spoken of.

As the old woman lifted her person from its stooping position and rose upright, you wondered that she had power in those withered limbs to stand so erect, or carry the weight of that heavy blue saya, with its succession of crimson flounces all edged with golden lace, from which the brightness had departed years ago. You wondered, too, at the picturesque and singular arrangement of colors in her dress. It is true the old velvet jacket had lost all traces of its original lustre. The colors of the saya were dimmed and worn away; but the vestige of former dignity was there, and no age could injure that mystic seal, or the massive ruby rings that bent her thin ears with their weight, and flashed like great drops of blood falling from beneath her kerchief.

Two or three times the grandame waved her light over the bronze vessel, then thrusting the candle back into its niche, with an air of discontent she walked to the door of her cave, flung it open and looked out.

At first she held one hand over her eyes as we do when the sun strikes us suddenly, and no wonder, for what a contrast was that beautiful night with the black hole she had left!

I have seen the Alhambra by moonlight, from the very point of view which the old Sibyl commanded, and it is one of the memories which one would give up years of life rather than surrender. Down from the soft purple of that glorious sky fell the moonlight, pouring its rich luminous floods over the snows that lie forever upon the noble mountain ranges of the Alpujarras. It cast a silvery halo around each snowy peak, making the whiteness lustrous as noonday, then came quivering down their sides, and fell in a silvery torrent among the groves that girdle the Alhambra. There, subdued and softened by the masses of foliage, it divided a sweet empire with the night, leaving half those dim old towers to the shadows, and pouring its whole refulgence upon the rest, throwing a glory over some broken arch, and abandoning its neighbor to obscurity.

Ah me, there is nothing on earth so beautiful as the moonlight shining amid a grim old ruin like that. It is the present smiling away the gloom of the past.

Broken up, as it were, by those naked old towers, the light fell among the groves, throwing the trees out in masses that took a greenish hue almost as if it had been day; then the foliage became dense, and long shadows cast themselves like a dewy vapor down the hill, admitting soft gleams to flicker in here and there, like a network of pearls embroidering the darkness. Then, as if some undercurrent of light had been all the while flowing on beneath the trees, out rushed the moonbeams breaking away from the shadows, and pouring down upon the bosom of the Darro, smiling, sparkling, kindling up every drop of water as it flowed by, till you would have thought some hidden vein in the mountains had broken free, and a torrent of diamonds were sweeping between Granada and its Moorish fortress.

It is possible that the old gipsy saw nothing of this. I am inclined to think that she did not, for the scene had become familiar to her, and that night she was ill at ease. Instead of turning her gaze as you would have done upon the Alhambra and the snow ridges beyond, she threw her head back, and began peering among the stars, muttering to herself in some strange tongue, and holding up her mystic ring as if to catch direct fire from the particular star to which her eyes were uplifted.

“Not now,” she said fiercely; for the least untoward thing awoke the old woman’s wrath; and even then she longed to gather all that beautiful moonlight up, and cast it into some dark void, because its refulgence dimmed the stars which she wished to read. “Not now,” she muttered, locking her sharp teeth together, and turning her fierce eyes upon the sky with a gleam of hate—“not while the moon is wading through the snows up yonder, and putting out the bright, beautiful stars till the heavens all run together like the printed pages of a book which one has not the art to read. Not yet, not yet. I must wait till the skies are purple again, and the stars come out with fire in them. The moon, the moon, it is the friend of the Busne, never of the Gitana. Accursed be its path in the sky. May the stars, that have a language for the Egyptian, grow powerful, and smite it down from its high place.”

After uttering this weird curse, the Sibyl closed the door and slunk back into her cave, pacing to and fro, and crooning over a wild snatch of song that seemed to excite rather than soothe the fierce mood she was in.

CHAPTER III.
CHALECO AND HIS PLUNDER.

All at once the old woman drew in her breath with a hiss, and bent her eyes on the door. She heard a footstep approach. The wooden lock moved, and a man perhaps of twenty-three or four years old presented himself.

It was many years since the old Sibyl had been known to change countenance, or the unpleasant surprise that seized her at the sight of this man must have been visible. Yet of all his tribe he might have been deemed a welcome guest in any cave in the settlement, for he was a count or chief among the gipsies of Granada, and added to this, was the betrothed husband of Aurora, the grandchild of Papita.

Why then should the old woman shrink within herself and receive Chaleco, the chief of her tribe, with so much inward trepidation? I only know that, dazzled as her eyes had been by the moonlight, she had read enough in the stars to make her afraid of meeting Chaleco.

The young count had all those strongly marked characteristics that distinguish his race: a clear olive complexion; heavy voluptuous lips, revealing teeth that shamed the whitest ivory; hair black and coarse, but, in his case, with a purple lustre upon it; eyes of vivid blackness, and cheek bones slightly; in him, very slightly prominent, all lighted up by an expression of great strength, sharpness, cunning and perseverance—that is, these passions must have been visible in his countenance had he ever allowed one true feeling to speak in his face. His dress alone would have bespoken his position in the tribe to one accustomed to the habits of our people, still it did not entirely appertain to the portion of the country to which he belonged.

Chaleco had travelled much in Catalonia, and having a rich fancy in costume, adopted many of their picturesque habits of dress. On this evening, he seemed to have arrayed himself with peculiar care, which is easily accounted for when we remember that he had been more than six weeks absent from Granada, and in that time had not seen his betrothed.

With the deep cunning of her race, blended perhaps with a little of the irritation that had preceded his coming, Papita was the first to speak; and taking exception to the Catalonian fashion of his dress, fortified her own position by commencing hostilities before the young man had time to ask questions, which she felt herself unable to answer satisfactorily.

“So, Chaleco, you have come back at last, and more like a stranger than ever. What Busne has bewitched you in the fair at Seville, that you return to Granada in a dress like that?”

“Why, mother, this is all folly. I have but added this cap to the garments that I wore when we went from hence. Surely this is not a thing to provoke your wrath,” cried the young man, taking a scarlet cap from his head with that half-shy, half-defying look with which some men receive female criticism on their dress, and grasping it with the heavy tassel of blue silk in his hand—“Aurora will not condemn it so sharply, I dare say.”

The mention of this name seemed to embitter the old woman’s reply.

“It is a Moorish cap, no true Gitano would wear it,” she said, eyeing the unfortunate cap with a contemptuous glance, “and your dress of dark blue velvet embroidered at the neck—pockets with gold upon the seams—silver buttons and tags rattling from their rings—and chains over your bosom like the bells around a mule’s neck.”

“Nay, you can find no fault with the buttons; they are from the best silver workers of Barcelona,” cried the count, flinging open the short dark velvet jacket with sleeves, which he wore hussar fashion over this beautiful dress, and revealing his whole person with an air of bravado, which the more swarthy color on his temples belied.

The old woman glanced with an expression that she intended to be one of unmingled scorn, upon the embroidered strips of cloth, blue and yellow, that enriched the neck and elbows of the young Gitano’s jacket, and allowing her eyes to glance down to his well-turned limbs, terminated her gaze at the sandals laced up to the knee by many-colored ribbons.

The young man followed her glance with a half-shy, half-provoked look.

“At any rate, you cannot find fault with this, or this,” he said, drawing her attention to a rich scarf of crimson silk around his waist, and a handkerchief in which many gorgeous colors were blended, that was knotted loosely around his well-formed neck. “I can only remember seeing the gipsy count, your husband, once when I was a boy, but I know well that he wore a dress not unlike this that you revile so, with a scarf and kerchief that might have come from the same loom.”

The old Sibyl kindled up like an aged war-horse at the sound of a trumpet—her withered features worked, her sharp eyes dilated, a grim smile crept over her lips.

“Yes, yes, I remember, and it is this that fills my heart with bitterness. He wrested these things from our foes, the Busne. They were his portion of the spoil. He laid many an ambush, and reddened his knife more than once for the frippery which you get in easier ways; for every button that he wore, his people had some gain of their own to show. How is it with you, Chaleco?—how many of our people have been fortunate, that you are tricked out so bravely? How many mules did you shear in Seville, to earn what is upon your back?”

“Aurora would not taunt me so,” said the gipsy, with a fierce gesture, “if she did”——

“Well, what then?” rejoined the old woman, sharply, though her fierce eye quailed a little, and a quick ear might have detected something like terror in her voice.

“Why, then,” said the young man, “I would send word that the ton of sweetmeats in which we shall dance knee deep at our marriage festival, should be kept back; and I would fling this chain of gold, which shall lace up her wedding bodice, into the Darro. It is because you are old and learned—the widow of a great count, that I have borne all these gibes so tamely; no one else in the tribe should revile me thus. She least of all.”

Either the stern tone which the young man assumed, or his praise of her dead husband, softened the austere temper of the old woman. Perhaps it might be the unwonted sight of that gold ornament, or what is most probable, her attack upon the young man had been an artful scheme to gain time, till her grand-daughter should appear. Certain it is, her face took an expression less in character than the wrath had been with her weird features. A crafty, sly expression stole into her eyes; her mouth stirred with a slow smile, moving sluggishly as the worm creeps. She reached out her hand for the chain, and letting it drop to a heap in her palm, bent over it with a look of gloating avarice that would have been hideous to any one but the Gitano, who had witnessed these scenes from his birth.

The old woman looked suddenly up. A fierce light was in her eyes.

“The rings in my ears are red hot; the chain burns in my palm; I know the sign; the Busne has been forced to give up his gold once more. Our people have not altogether sunk down to be mere trimmers of mules and donkeys. You did not work for this, my Chaleco!”

“Hush!” said the gipsy, lifting his finger with a smile, in which terror and triumph was blended, “the Busne may be hanging about our caves. The chain is for Aurora. She shall wear it upon her bosom on our wedding day. But where is she? Your sharp words have driven her from my mind!”

“No, no, my son, it is well that we are alone; you have accomplished a great deed—a deed worthy of Aurora’s grandfather, he who has stained many a rood of soil with Busne blood—but times have changed since he roamed the hills with our people. If there was blood—and the gold burns my palm as if it had been baptized—they will be on our track, hunting you into our holes as they do the foxes. Tell me how it all happened; my heart burns to hear; the tidings have filled these old veins as with wine; I had begun to be ashamed of my people. Sit down, Chaleco, here, on the old chair which he took from the choir of their proudest cathedral while the priests were chanting mass. You never sat in it before; but now that you have reddened your finger nails—warmed my palm with gold that is not worked for, the seat is yours. Sit down, my son, while I draw close, that we may talk!”

The young gipsy sat down, but evidently with some impatience; and the Sibyl creeping close to his side, placed herself on a low bench, and, bending forward, fixed her glittering eyes on his face.

“Now,” she said, rubbing her thin hands together, and chafing the chain between them, “tell me, is this all? The chief takes one third of the whole, that is the law of the Cales.”

“No, there was gold, a thousand pieces, packed away upon a mule.”

“A thousand pieces! Oh, my son, I saw great luck in the stars for you—but a thousand pieces!—this is wonderful!”

“Besides, there was a watch with double case, all fine gold, and some rings which were too large for Aurora’s finger, so we buried them in the ground, with the gold and other treasures. Here is something. I am not sure about giving this to her, these glittering things on the back may be of value. I found it hung to the Busne’s neck by the chain; here is his own face, it may yet bring us into trouble. Look”——

The chief drew a locket from his bosom shaped like a cockle shell. The whole outside was paved with pearls swelling into the several compartments. The scalloped edges were bright with diamonds of great value. He touched a spring, and within this exquisite trinket two miniatures were revealed. One was that of a young man, fair, with a bright, clear complexion, fine eyes of greyish blue, a delicate forehead, pure as snow in color, and teeming with thought; a mouth somewhat full, and of deep coral red, with a fair curling beard of rich brown, kindled up by a tinge of gold; hair a little deeper in tint, but with the same metallic lustre breaking through its heavy waves. This was the face, fair, animated, and lighted up with a beautiful smile, that first presented itself to the old Sibyl’s gaze. She arose, took down the candle, and peered over it in silence. The contrast was striking, that tawny, witch-like countenance, and the beautiful shadows smiling out from its bed of jewels.

There was a female portrait on the other side; but it was that of a woman somewhat older than the youth could have been; but, though of different complexion, there was one of those indefinite resemblances between the two faces which exist independent of features, running through families, and connecting them in the eyes of the beholder with a subtle influence, as one feels that a rose is near, by the perfume which is itself impalpable.

The Sibyl only glanced at the female face, and turned to that of the young man again with keener interest. You could see by the workings of her face that she was beginning to hate that beautiful shadow; for there was a terrible gleam in her eye when she closed the shell with a snap, and clutched it in her hand.

“No,” she said, sharply, “my grand-daughter shall not wear this thing. The bright sparks are diamonds; the white ridges are of oriental pearls. But the face is that of the Busne; it does not belong to Spain either; hair and eyes of that color come from beyond sea. It is worth more than all your gold or the other trinkets; but she shall not wear it. I saw a face like this between me and the stars to-night. Was the man you plundered like it?”

“It was himself; two faces were never more alike!”

“And your knife, is it red? Did you leave him in the hills?”

“No, mother,” replied the chief, blushing, as if ashamed that he had no crime of blood to confess, “he made no resistance; we were many, he nearly alone, for the guards fled as we rushed upon them. We did not kill him, there was no reason in it.”

“How long was this ago?”

“It was three days after we left Granada!”

“That is almost six weeks—but where?”

“About half way between this and Seville!”

“And did you take the plunder along?”

“We buried it on the spot; went to the fair as if nothing had happened, and dug it up as we came home.”

“And which way went the traveller?”

“We did not wait to see; his face was toward Granada when we met him; that is all I can say.”

“Go from my sight—you should have killed this viper—he was crawling this way.”

“Mother!”

“Go—go, but first let me grind this thing to powder with my foot; help me to spoil his face; you can pick up the diamonds from the dirt when I have done stamping on them!”

“No, mother, it is worth money—give it to me!”

The old woman unclutched her hand and flung the trinket against the wall of her cave, where it fell back with a rebound to her feet.

“Leave it,” she said, with a fierce laugh, “the thing is accursed—leave it and go.”

“Not till I have seen Aurora,” said the young man, looking wistfully at the jewel. “It is late, very late, she must be yonder in her nest, ashamed to come forth without a bidding from her betrothed. Step aside, mother, I have waited too long.”

The young chief strode forward as he spoke, and touching a door which was half concealed behind the old woman’s chair, flung it open, revealing, by the light that stood in its niche close by, an inner room, in which the outline of a low bed and some furniture was visible.

“Aurora,” said the young man, “come, come, I have waited long.”

“She is not there,” said the old woman, in a low voice, while her head drooped downward.

“Not there? Nay, nay, I know better, she is only shy, hiding away like a young fox. See if I do not find her.”

He snatched the light and went into the little sleeping cell. The bed was there, covered with fine old chintz. A little table and two chairs stood in their several places. The scent of fresh flowers filled the cell, which, by its cleanliness, its little ornaments, and the fragrance that floated on the close air proved that its occupant was no ordinary woman of her tribe. But everything was silent. No sparkling eyes full of mischief, no wild laugh met the young gipsy as he expected. He stood a moment with the candle held up, gazing around the room; then a painful thought seemed to strike him. He turned and fixed his eyes on the old woman.

“Where is she?”

It was all he said, but there was something fierce in the question.

“She went to the Alhambra this morning, and has not come back yet.”

The old woman did not lift her eyes as she spoke; why, she herself could not have explained; but every time that night, when word or thought had turned to her grandchild, this strange cowardice seized her.

“I will go seek Aurora,” said the young gipsy, striding towards the door.

“You!” cried the old woman, springing like a tigress between him and the entrance. “Would you break the betrothal? Would you cast shame on my blood? Would you have the whole tribe hooting at you both?”

The chief hesitated. He knew well that the gipsy law prohibited the act he meditated. That for a betrothed pair to wander alone, or arrange a meeting beyond the confines of the settlement, would sunder them forever. He thought of this and hesitated. But the hot blood of a jealous nature was on his forehead; he could hardly restrain himself.

“With what man of our tribe does she wander at this time of night?” he demanded, fiercely.

“With none; she has scarcely spoken to man or woman of our people since you left for Seville,” replied the old woman, with a look of earnest truth that could not but appease his suspicions in that quarter.

“But she is not alone?”

“I do not know; travellers are plenty in the Alhambra just now!”

“Travellers!” repeated the chief, with a scornful laugh, and the hot blood left his forehead—“the Busne, ha! ha! why not say this before—the little fox, she is at her work there. Aurora is a wife worthy of your count, old mother; hers are the eyes that draw gold from the Busne. But now that I have come back, she must not stay out so late; I would look in her eyes myself, the sly one. Tell here so, mother—at daylight I will be here again.”

Relieved from the sharp feeling of jealousy that had at first possessed him, the gipsy count strode away content and happy—a little disappointed at not seeing his betrothed that night, but rather proud than otherwise, that she was employed in wiling gold by her sweet arts from the people whom it was his duty to hate. The idea that there could be danger or wrong to him, in her adventures with the white travellers it was her duty to delude, never entered his mind. To him, in common with the whole tribe, the idea of an attachment between a gipsy maiden and one of another race was an impossibility. Had my old grandame said that Aurora was out gathering flowers, he might have been less proud, but not better satisfied. The idea of being jealous of a Gentile, a Busne, was impossible.

But my grandmother was of a different nature. She possessed that rare organization which is called genius in civilized life, and magic with us; that exquisite sensitiveness of nerve and thought, which took the shadow of coming events long before they become a reality. This, with her acute wit, her sharp observation, her strange habits of solitary thought, rendered her a wonderful being. It is impossible for me to describe this. I can no more tell you why my grandame possessed the power of feeling what was about to happen, than I could divide the elements that sparkle in a cup of water, but the truth was there. She fancied that her knowledge came through the stars. But in natures endowed like hers, there is something more wonderful than all the stars of heaven can reveal.

What was it that induced her that night to fill that bronze vessel with those strange poisonous herbs? Why did she watch them distill so sadly, and yet with such stern patience? What would the juice of these herbs become? I will tell you another time. Now let us follow my grandmother. She was old, feeble—for years she had not been known to walk half a mile. But that night she went forth alone, creeping down the hill-side, through the hollows along the river’s bank—up, up, like some hungry animal that dared to prowl through those ravines only at night-time. She was almost bent double at times, and looked in truth like a wild animal, but her purpose was strong, and that carried her forward.

CHAPTER IV.
THE MIDNIGHT RAMBLE.

A forest of lilies seemed to have poured both whiteness and fragrance upon the moonbeams as they fell, softly as the flower breathes, on the grim towers and fairy-like courts of the Alhambra. It was not very late, but all about the ruins lay still as midnight. The nightingales had nestled down to sleep among the roses, leaving the air which they had thrilled with music to the mysterious chime of hidden brooklets, the bell-like tinkle of water-drops falling into unseen fountains, and the faint ripple of leaves and roses, as they yielded their voluptuous breath to the night winds.

The sounds that came from the distant city but served to render this solitude more complete. The baying of dogs, the low tinkle of guitars, the faint, hive-like hum that rose up from the dim mass of buildings, seemed all of another world. A spirit looking down upon earth from beyond the stars, could not have felt more completely isolated than a person wandering in the Alhambra after the nightingales were asleep.

Whatever of human life had been hanging about the ruins that day should have disappeared long ago, for travelling was not so common as it is now, and few persons chose to seek the Alhambra after dark. But on this night there was a sound now and then breaking the stillness—the tread of footsteps wandering about the ruins. You heard them at intervals with long pauses, and from various points, as if some one were roaming about within the very walls of the palace.

This sound had continued some time. It issued first from that beautiful double corridor which was once the grand entrance to those enchanting scenes, that even in ruins have more than the fascinations of romance. Time, that has dimmed their first loveliness, but leaves broader scope for the imagination, which, starting from these vestiges of beauty, rebuilds, creates, becomes luxurious. Contrast, too, has its share; the bleak, almost rude severity of those grim towers, the weeds, the broken stonework, the walls tracing the uneven slopes of the hill, the ruined defences, all give a force, and brighten the exquisite grace of that little Paradise, which takes one by surprise.

Well, the footsteps, I have said, came from this corridor, once the thoroughfare of kings. Then they were heard from the gorgeous saloon on the right, composing a portion of those apartments in which the Moorish Sultanas spent their isolated lives. Then these footsteps moved towards the great tower of Comares, and two shadowy forms appeared moving slowly, almost languidly, between the slender columns and azulejo pillars of a gallery that leads that way.

These persons—for two were walking close together, and with footsteps so light that those of the female seemed but an echo of the harder and firmer tread of the man—these persons were not wandering in that heavenly place, you may be certain, from a desire to examine the wonderful beauty that surrounded them. They had looked a thousand times on those singular remnants of art. Besides, the gallery was almost wrapped in shadow, and the rich colours, the lace-like stucco, the dim gilding, were all flowing together unveiling the darkness, but nothing more.

They hurried on, for the dome of heavy wood that overhung them seemed gloomy and portentous as a thunder-cloud. The shadows within those noble carvings were black as ebony. The beautiful design, the long, graceful stalactites, honeycombed and dashed with gold, all breaking out as from the midnight of ages, had a sombre effect. It seemed, as I have said before, like a storm-cloud condensed over them, full of gloom and prophetic wrath. My parents had come forth in search of joy, light, beauty—things that would harmonize with the ineffable happiness that overflowed their own young hearts—and they hastened from beneath this frowning roof, with its marvel of art, its grim antiquity, as we flee from the chill of a vault to the warm sunshine.

Other persons might have lost themselves in this labyrinth of beauty, but my mother had trod those ruined halls before she could remember, and the darkness was nothing against her entire knowledge of the place. Now she stood in that miracle of beauty, the Hall of the Ambassadors, the grand Moorish state chamber which occupies the entire Comares Tower. They were no longer in darkness, for through the deep embrasures of its windows came the moonlight, falling upon the pavement in long gleams of radiance, and flowing over the rich colors like the unfolding of a silver banner.

It fell upon the walls with their exquisite tracery heavy in themselves, but so refined by art that the golden filagree work of Genoa is scarcely more delicate, and snow itself less pure. It gilded the azulejos. By this I mean those exquisite little tiles, brilliant as the richest enamel, of various tints—blue, red, and yellow predominating—which inlaid a gorgeous recess in the wall, and glittered around that raised platform which had been the foundation of a lost throne, now glowing in gorgeous masses, as if precious stones had been imbedded in the snow-work. All this was so richly revealed, so mistily hidden, that with a full knowledge of all which the shadows kept from view, the imagination would take flight, and you felt as if the gates of Paradise must have been flung open, before even a glimpse of so much beauty could be given to mortal eyes.

For a moment even those two lovers, in the first sublime egotism of passion which was destiny to them, stood hushed and dumb as they found themselves beneath the dome of that wonderful chamber. It was before the present ribs of wood and masses of intricate carving were introduced, with all their elaborated gloom, to brood over the most graceful specimen of art that human genius ever devised. The original dome arched above them seventy feet in the air, pure, majestic, gorgeous, as if the gold and crimson of a sunset sky were striving to break through the masses of summer clouds centred there. Then they became accustomed to the light, and things grew more distinct. The glorious moonlight of southern Europe is so luminous—the darkness that it casts so deep—it leaves no beauty unrevealed—it gathers all deformity under its shadows.

Every beautiful line of art that surrounded them was not only revealed, but idealized. The noble stucco work within the dome, moulded into exquisite designs two feet deep, pure as if cut from the snow ridges of Alpujarras—the ground-work of gorgeous colors, red, blue, gold glowing out from those depths of woven whiteness—the long, delicate stalactites dripping with moonlight, and peering downward from the compartments of each deep interstice, as if the snow-work, beginning to melt, had frozen again into great icicles—the pure whiteness all around, the colors burning underneath, or breaking out in rich masses like belts of jewels near the pavement—all this, as I have said, made even the lovers tread across the chamber cautiously and in silence. The stillness, the glow, the moonlight, made even the stealthy tread of their footsteps a sacrilegious intrusion.

They stole into one of the deep recesses of a window, where the moonlight fell upon them full and broad. The walls were so deep that it gave them a sort of seclusion. They began to breathe more freely, and the deep spell that had rapt their hearts for an instant, gave way to the rich flood of happiness that no power on earth could long hold in abeyance.

They stood together in the recess, but with a touch of art—for entire love has always a shyness in it, a sort of holy reserve, which is the modesty of passion—Aurora’s eyes were turned aside, not exactly to the floor, but she seemed gazing upon the beautiful plain of Granada, which lay like a stretch of Paradise far below them. He was looking in her face, for there was something of wild beauty, of the shy grace which one sees in a half-tamed bird, which would have drawn the eyes of a less interested person upon the gipsy girl, as she stood there with the radiant moonlight falling upon her like a veil. As she looked forth a shade of sadness fell upon her face, singular as it was beautiful, for in her wild life the passions seldom found repose enough for that gentle twilight of the soul, sadness. But it was both strange and lovely, that unwonted softness, the first sweet hush of civilization upon her meteor-like spirit. Still he could see her eyes glitter through those curling lashes, thick, long, inky as night, but nothing could entirely shut out the wonderful radiance of those eyes.

“What are you looking at so earnestly, my bird?” said the young man, reaching forth his hand as if to draw her closer to his side.

But she hung back, and for the first time seemed to shrink from him.

“Will you not speak? Are you afraid of me, Aurora?” he added with a tone of feeling that changed her face in an instant.

“Afraid! no, no—that is not the word—but this moment, something came over me as I looked upon our fires up the ravine yonder. It seems as if every cave were full of light this evening, and our people—my people—were rejoicing over something.”

“Well, child, and what then? Why should this make you shrink away from me thus?” questioned the young man, smiling gently upon her as he spoke.

“It may be over his return.”

She spoke the word with a sort of gasp, and of her own accord crept close to his side, drawing a deep breath as he folded her with his arm.

“His return! Of whom do you speak, little one?”

“Of—of Chaleco,” faltered the gipsy child.

“And who is Chaleco?”

“Our chief—the Gipsy Count of our people—the husband they have given to me!”

“The husband they have given to you!” cried the young Englishman, flinging aside his arm, and drawing back—“the husband, Aurora!”

Aurora started back, even as he did, for she was not a woman to be spurned, child and gipsy though she was. She did not speak, but her eyes flashed, and her lips began to curl. She was a proud wild thing, that young Gitana; and the fire of her race began to kindle up beneath the love that had smothered it so long.

“Aurora, why did you not tell me of this earlier? How could I think it—you, who in my own country would yet be so mere a child—how could I dream that you were already married?”

“I did not say that,” cried the young girl, and her eyes became dazzling in the moonlight, so eager was she to make herself understood. “It is not yet—he, Chaleco, my grandmother, all the tribe say that, it must be—and I know that he is to hurry home the sweetmeats and presents from Seville.”

“The sweetmeats? What have sweetmeats to do with us?”

“Nothing, I dare say; perhaps you do not use them; but with us there is no marriage without sweetmeats, a ton or more. I heard Chaleco say once that he would dance knee deep in them when I become his—his”——

She broke off, and her face became dusky with the hot blood that rushed over it, for the Englishman, spite of his anger and of his sharp interest in the subject, burst into a fit of merry laughter.

“Why do you laugh?” she said, with trembling lips—“does it please you that they will marry me to Chaleco—that my life must end then?”

“What do you mean, Aurora? I never saw you weep, but your voice seems choked with tears. Tell me what is this trouble that threatens us? What is it makes you weep, for I see now that your eyes are full, that your cheeks are wet? Come close to me, darling, say, what is it? Not my foolish laughter, I could not help it, child, the idea of dancing one’s self into married life through an ocean of sweetmeats was too ridiculous!”

“It may be,” said Aurora, gently, for the tears she was shedding had quenched all her anger. “It does not seem so to us, but then a poor child who cannot help fearing death a little, when she knows that the grave lies beyond all this, it may well trouble her.”

“The grave, Aurora!—what has driven you mad? The grave for you, my pretty wild bird? Nay, nay, leave this sort of nervousness to our fine ladies at home. Here it is pure nonsense.”

“Hush!” exclaimed my mother, and her eyes flashed like lightning as she turned them around the vast chamber. “That was a sound; surely I heard some one move.”

“I hear nothing,” said the young man, listening and speaking low. “It was a bat probably, flitting across the dome—these things are common, you know”——

“Yes, yes! but yonder the shadows are moving.”

“I see nothing!”

“But I did,” whispered the young girl, wildly, “I did!”

“It might have been something sweeping between the moonlight and the window,” suggested her companion, who, quite ignorant of any great danger in being watched, felt little anxiety about the matter.

“This was no cypress bough, no bat trying its wings in the night. Such movements are common here, but they do not chill one to the soul like this—see!”

The gipsy placed her little hands in those of the young man, and though she clasped her fingers hard together both her hands and arms trembled till they shook his.

“What does all this mean, Aurora?” he questioned, earnestly. “I thought nerves were only for fine ladies.”

There was a slight sarcasm in his voice, but the girl did not seem to heed it. Her great wild eyes continued to roam over the ambassador’s chamber, and she listened, not to him, but for something that seemed lurking in a distant corner of the room. At length she drew a deep breath as if inexpressibly relieved, and lifted her eyes to his again.

“It is gone,” she said, smiling uneasily—“it is gone!”

“What is gone?”

“I don’t know, but something has just left this room: I can breathe again.”

“Did you see any one depart?”

“No!”

“Did you hear it?”

“No!”

“Then how could you be certain?”

“I felt it.”

“How?”

“Did you never feel certain of a presence which you neither saw nor heard?”

“I do not know; perhaps yes,” replied the young man, thoughtfully; “the atmosphere of a particular person sometimes does seem to enwrap us, but this is visionary speculation. I did not think these vagaries could haunt a wild, fresh, untaxed brain like yours. They have hitherto seemed to me purely the result of an over-refined intellect.”

“It seemed to me as if my grandmother were close by,” said the gipsy.

“Your grandmother! I thought she never left her cave—her home!”

“I know that—she could not reach this place—you must be right. But why should the bare thought have made me tremble if she was not here—I who never tremble, at least from dread?”

“And if not from dread, what is the power that can make you tremble?” inquired the youth, bending his mischievous eyes smilingly upon her.

She did not speak, but the little hands, still clasped in his, began to quiver like newly-caught ring-doves. Those wonderful eyes were lifted to his, luminous still, for all the dews of her young soul could not have quenched their brilliancy—but so flooded with love-light, so eloquent of the one great life passion, that the smile died on his lip. There was something almost startling in the thought that his hand had stricken the crystal rock from which such floods of brightness gushed forth. He felt like one who had, half in sport, aroused some sleeping spirit, which must henceforth be a destiny to him—an angel or a demon in his path forever.

“You almost make me tremble,” he whispered, bending forward and kissing her upturned forehead softly, and with a sort of awe. “Come, love, come, let us walk; this still moonlight lies upon us both like a winding-sheet.”

“Yes, yes, let us go,” cried the gipsy eagerly, and gliding down the spacious hall, the two moved on, seeking that exquisite colonnade from which the Moors commanded a view of the whole valley and plain in which Granada stands. Now all was darkness. The slender marble shafts blended and bedded in with coarse mortar, were scarcely visible. The moonbeams broke against the rude walls, and fell powerless from the beautiful arches which they had once flooded with silvery light; but the lovers walked on through all this gloom reassured, and with their thoughts all centred in each other once more. Aurora forgot her fears, and he was not of an age or temperament to yield himself long to gloomy fancies.

At length they entered a small chamber, still in good repair, and flooded with a moonlight which swept through the delicate columns of a small balcony or temple that jutted from the outer wall. The pavement seemed flagged with solid silver, the moonbeams lay so hard and unbrokenly upon it, and received these exquisite shadows as virgin ivory takes the soft traces of an artist’s pencil. The glow of rich fresco paintings broke out from the walls, brilliant as when the colors were first laid on by order of that Vandal Charles. In the soft scenic obscurity, the deformity or mutilations of time were unseen. You missed the frost-like Moorish tracery from over that bed of colors, but scarcely felt the loss amid the misty gorgeousness that replaced it.

They passed through this room and went out upon the marble colonnade. Nothing but the delicate Moorish shafts I have mentioned stood between them and the beautiful plain of Granada. Lights still sparkled in all directions over the old city, as if heaven had sent down a portion of its stars to illuminate a spot that so nearly resembled itself. The gentle undulations of the plain were broken into hills and ridges of the richest green. The soft haze blended with the moonlight where it lay upon the horizon. The mountains that overlooked all this, on the left, were cut up with ravines full of black shadows, green as emerald at the base, glittering with snow at the top.

Close by was that belt of huge dark trees, sweeping around the old fortress, with glimpses of the Darro breaking up through the dusky foliage—on the right, a dim convent nestled among the hills, and nearer yet, the vine-draped ascent of Sierra del Sol, with its mountain villa, its Darro waters, its orange terrace, and rose hedges, all filling the sweet night with melody and fragrance! Do you wonder that they forgot themselves?—that they looked on a scene like this filled only with a delicious sense of its beauty?

The air was balmy with fragrance, yet cool from the mountain snows, invigorating, and still voluptuous. The entire stillness, too—nothing was astir but the sweet, low sounds of nature, the rustle of myrtle thickets, the mournful shiver of a cypress tree as the wind sighed through it, the movement of a bird in its nest.

Is it strange, I say, that all this beauty became food to the love that filled their young lives with its first tumultuous emotions? That while they forgot that love, and thought only of the scene before them, it grew the stronger from neglect? When they did speak, it was in low tones, and as if a loud word might disturb the entire happiness that reigned in each full heart.

“Aurora, you have been here many times before, and at this hour, perhaps—say, have your eyes ever fallen upon the scene when it was beautiful as now?” murmured the young man, dreamily.

“I do not know; I have seen it a thousand times, but never, never felt that it was really beautiful. To-night it seems as if I had just been aroused from sleep—that all my life has been one dull stupor. I shudder at the remembrance of what I was. I pant for new scenes of beauty—new emotions, these are so full of joy. Tell me, Busne, my own, own Busne, does happiness like this never kill? I grow faint with it as one does when the orange trees are thick overhead, and burdened with blossoms. My breath comes heavily as if laden with their fragrance. I long to creep away into the shadows, yonder, and cry myself to sleep.”

“Why do you wish to weep, my bird? Tears are for the unhappy.”

“Yet you see that I am weeping; my eyes are blinded; the lights down yonder seem floating in a mist. I cannot see, and yet I know that you are smiling there in the moonlight. It is happiness, oh, such happiness that floods my eyes.”

He was not smiling, or if he had been for one moment, the impulse died of itself the next. Educated as he had been, hemmed in by conventionalities, it was impossible not to be startled by the wildness, the depth of feeling revealed by this strange child. The very reckless innocence with which she exposed every sensation as it arose in her heart—the intensity of feeling thus betrayed made him thoughtful, nay, anxious. It was only for a brief time, however. Before Aurora could notice his abstraction it had disappeared.

“Is it, indeed, love for me, Aurora, that makes you so happy?” he questioned with fond egotism.

“I do not know; to-night I scarcely know myself. Love! it has a soft, sweet sound—but does not mean enough. Oh, if you could speak Rommany now, in our language are such words; oh, how insipid your word love is when compared to them.”

In a deep, passionate voice, the very tones of which seemed to thrill and burn into the heart, she uttered some words in pure Rommany, that language which has yet been traced to no given origin. Like ourselves, it is an outcast, vagabond dialect, which baffles investigation.

He understood nothing of what she said. But her eyes so dazzlingly brilliant; her lips kindled to a vivid red, as it were, by the burning words that passed through them; the exquisite modulations of each tone, all had a powerful effect upon the young man—powerful, but not that which might have been expected, for it filled his mind with distrust.

She did not heed the change in his countenance. Juliet herself was never more thoroughly inspired or more trusting. Crafty in all things else, our women are single-hearted as children in their love. Truth itself is not more constant. Religion does not give you a trust more perfect—religion—love is a religion to them, they have no better, poor, wandering creatures, bereft of all things, home, name, nationality, faith. But all people must have something that they deem holy, something upon which the soul can lean for strength and comfort. Happier nations put faith in a God, we poor outcasts have only our household affections, and we keep them sacred as your altars.

Though the gipsy adopts the faith of any nation that gives him protection, becomes Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Idolater, as the case may be, it is all a pretence. In his soul he loathes the object that he craftily seems to worship.

But the Englishman knew nothing of this. He had no idea of the rigid bonds with which antique custom hedges in the domestic affections in a gipsy household. These affections are the most sacred thing known to us. I have said that as a people we have no other religion.

With all this ignorance of our customs, how could he comprehend a creature like that, with her unreserve, her passion so vivid, that it struggled constantly for some new medium of expression, and grew impatient of the stately Spanish, and the few English words that seemed to chill every impulse as she strove to frame it into utterance. He could not believe that a woman trained to deception, wild, unchecked, nay, taught to believe the right wrong, was in everything that related to her own womanly tenderness true as gold—honest as infancy.

He shrunk from this poor child then, as her own language gushed up and swept the cold Spanish from her lips. It seemed to him that she must have uttered those words before; perhaps to some traveller-dupe like himself; perhaps to Chaleco—Chaleco. He began to dwell upon that name with jealous eagerness, and coupled it with the words of Rommany that still trembled on Aurora’s lips. For the first time he began to doubt the poor gipsy girl; yet I, who know the women of his own people to the soul, say to you most solemnly, that among the best of his fair compatriots he might have searched a life-time, and in vain, for a young heart so pure in every loving impulse, so thoroughly virtuous as that which beat within the velvet bodice of the little Gitana.

“Aurora, look in my face,” he said, seizing both her hands as she ceased speaking.

She did look in his face with a glance that ought to have shamed him—a glance, smiling, fond, and yet so void of evil. He might have searched in those eyes till doomsday, and found nothing there but a beautiful reflection of himself.

“Aurora, you have repeated these heathenish words before!”

He made the assertion somewhat faintly, for something in her look half-smothered the suspicion as it arose to his lips.

“Before! when?” she answered, in smiling surprise.

“To Chaleco, perhaps.”

“To Chaleco—oh, never; I could not speak thus to Chaleco,” and the poor girl shuddered at the sound of that name, as an apostate would when reminded of his old faith.

“But—your chief, this Chaleco, he has uttered them to you.”

“He—where—at what time?”

“Here, perhaps, by moonlight, as you are now standing by me.”

She looked at him with a troubled and questioning eye. He was a mystery to her then, and the child was striving to fathom the new feeling that she saw in his countenance.

“No! Chaleco never came here with me at night—never at all since we were little children! Have I not told you that he is my betrothed?”

She spoke sadly, almost in tears.

“Well, is not that a good reason why he of all others should overwhelm you with this sweet Rommany, here by moonlight, as you now stand with me?”

“Oh, that could never happen,” she exclaimed eagerly, “they would take the countship from him—they would drive us both ignominiously from the tribe; you do not know our ways, our laws. Of all the men in our tribe, Chaleco would not dare to seek me here.”

“Why?”

“It is not permitted; we are betrothed, and so never must be alone; it would be infamy!”

“And to be here with me, is that nothing?”

“There is no law that keeps us from seeking the Busne. It is our duty. From them we win most gold!”

The young man recoiled.

“Gold, is it for that you come?” he said bitterly. “No, no, I have offered tenfold what she has ever taken. It was not for that you came, Aurora, I had rather die than think it. Speak, child, tell me it was not for gold that you sought me!”

“I dared not go home empty-handed, for the grandame would have given me blows,” answered the poor girl, while tears began to run down her cheeks. “I could not dance to others as in former times; yet I never touched a piece of your coin without feeling all the strength leave me—without longing to hide myself from every one. Of late you have never offered money when I came.”

“I know—I know,” said the young man, quickly, “it seemed like a desecration; I could not do it.”

“Oh, how happy I was to feel this, it made me so grateful, but I was afraid of her. Sometimes I would be for hours getting home, in hopes that she would be asleep?”

“My poor child, I never thought of this. Is the old Sibyl cruel to you, then?”

“Every one is cruel to me now—every one but you; and to-night, it seems sometimes, as if you were joining them. What have I done that you should make me weep like the rest?”

“Nothing, my poor Aurora, nothing. The fault is mine; I was annoyed by what you told me of this Chaleco; it made me unreasonable.”

“Was that all?” cried the poor little gipsy, brightening up, and pressing her lips softly down into the palm of his offered hand.

He made no answer, but drew her gently toward him, and for a time they stood together in thoughtful silence. Their eyes were bent on the same object, one that they had usually avoided; for there was little promise of tranquillity in that direction.

Amid the luxuriance of the scene before them, so full of all that might reasonably win the attention, their eyes were fascinated by one object alone, and that so dreary, so uninviting, that it aroused nothing but ideas of sin and wretchedness, unhappy subjects for hearts laden as theirs were with the first sweet impulses of affection.