good deal, we agreed to go to some other falls, which
might come cheaper, an' may-be be jus' as good to begin on. So we
thought of Passaic Falls, up to Paterson, an' we went there, an' took a
room at a little hotel, an' walked over to the falls. But they wasn't
no good, after all, for there wasn't no water runnin' over em. There
was rocks and precipicers, an' direful depths, and everything for a good
falls, except water, and that was all bein' used at the mills. 'Well,
Miguel,' says I, 'this is about as nice a place for a falls as ever I
see,' but--"

"Miguel!" cried Euphemia. "Is that your husband's name?"

"Well, no," said Pomona, "it isn't. His given name is Jonas, but I hated
to call him Jonas, an' on a bridal trip, too. He might jus' as well have
had a more romantic-er name, if his parents had 'a' thought of it. So
I determined I'd give him a better one, while we was on our journey,
anyhow, an' I changed his name to Miguel, which was the name of a
Spanish count. He wanted me to call him Jiguel, because, he said, that
would have a kind of a floating smell of his old name, but I didn't
never do it. Well, neither of us didn't care to stay about no dry falls,
so we went back to the hotel and got our supper, and begun to wonder
what we should do next day. He said we'd better put it off and dream
about it, and make up our minds nex' mornin', which I agreed to, an',
that evenin', as we was sittin' in our room I asked Miguel to tell me
the story of his life. He said, at first, it hadn't none, but when I
seemed a kinder put out at this, he told me I mustn't mind, an' he would
reveal the whole. So he told me this story:

"'My grandfather,' said he, 'was a rich and powerful Portugee, a-livin'
on the island of Jamaica. He had heaps o' slaves, an' owned a black
brigantine, that he sailed in on secret voyages, an', when he come
back, the decks an' the gunnels was often bloody, but nobody knew why or
wherefore. He was a big man with black hair an' very violent. He could
never have kept no help, if he hadn't owned 'em, but he was so rich,
that people respected him, in spite of all his crimes. My grandmother
was a native o' the Isle o' Wight. She was a frail an' tender woman,
with yeller hair, and deep blue eyes, an' gentle, an' soft, an' good to
the poor. She used to take baskits of vittles aroun' to sick folks, an'
set down on the side o' their beds an' read "The Shepherd o' Salisbury
Plains" to 'em. She hardly ever speaked abo