t mother, I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I hope that you
have forgotten nothing. Where is your mantilla? And have you replenished
your cigarito case? Is there water in the wagon?"
"Nothing has been provided. Things most necessary are forgotten, no
doubt. When you neglect such matters, what less could happen?"
But such little breezes of temper were soon over. The influences
surrounding, the prospects in advance, were too exhilarating to permit
of anything but passing shadows, and after an easy, delightful journey,
they reached at length the charming vicinity of the romantic city of
the sword. They had but another five miles ride, and it was the Senora's
pleasure to take it at the hour of midnight. She did not wish her return
to be observed and talked about; she was in reality very much mortified
by the condition of her own and her daughters' wardrobe.
Consequently, though they made their noon camp so near to their
journey's end, they rested there until San Antonio was asleep and
dreaming. It was the happiest rest of all the delightful ones they
had known. The knowledge that it was the last stage of a journey so
remarkable, made every one attach a certain tender value to the hours
never to come back to the experiences never to be repeated.
The Senora was gay as a child; Isabel shared and accentuated her
enthusiasms; Luis was expressing his happiness in a variety of songs;
now glorifying his love in some pretty romance or serenade, again
musically assuring liberty, or Texas, that he would be delighted at any
moment to lay down his life for their sakes. Antonia was quite as much
excited in her own way, which was naturally a much quieter way; and
Lopez sat under a great pecan-tree, smoking his cigarito with placid
smiles and admiring glances at every one.
As the sun set, the full moon rose as it rises nowhere but over Texan or
Asian plains; golden, glorious, seeming to fill the whole heaven and the
whole earth with an unspeakable radiance; softly glowing, exquisitely,
magically beautifying. The commonest thing under it was transfigured
into something lovely, fantastic, fairylike. And the dullest souls
swelled and rose like the tides under its influence.
Antonia took from their stores the best they had, and a luxurious supper
was spread upon the grass. The meal might have been one of ten courses,
it occupied so long; it provoked so much mirth, such a rippling stream
of reminiscence; finally, such a sweetly so
|