de, a slope of roses and of orange flowers, of thick,
hot grass and of tangled green shrubs. The garden wall was white and
uneven, and almost hidden by wild, pink flowers. Beneath was spread the
plain in which lies the City, bounded by the mountains over which, each
evening, the sun sets. And every day the drowsy air hummed in answer to
the huge and drowsy voice of the wonderful Cathedral bell, which struck
the hours and filled this lovely world with almost terrible vibrations
of romance. In the thick woods that steal to the feet of the ethereal
Palace the murmur of the streams was ever heard, and the white snows of
the Sierra Nevada stared over the yellow and russet plain, and were
touched with a blue blush as the night came on.

Catherine, although she loved her parents and had never fully realised
the enmity grown up between them, felt a strange happiness, that was
more than the happiness of new-born passion, in her emancipation. She
was by nature exquisitely sensitive, and she had often been vaguely
troubled by the contest between her parents. Their fighting instincts
had sometimes set her face to face with a sort of shadowed valley, in
whose blackness she faintly heard the far-off clash of weapons. Now she
was caught away from this subtle tumult, and as she looked into her
husband's vivacious dark eyes she felt that a little weight which had
lain long on her heart was lifted from it. She had thought herself happy
before, now she knew herself utterly happy. Life seemed to have no dark
background. Even love itself was not spoiled by a too great wonder of
seriousness. They loved in sunshine and were gay--like grasshoppers in
the grass that the sun has filled with a still rapture of warmth. Not
till two days before their departure for England was this chirping,
grasshopper mood disturbed or dispelled.

At one end of the long and narrow garden there was a little crude
pavilion, open to the air on three sides. The domed roof was supported
on painted wooden pillars up which red and white roses audaciously
climbed. Rugs covered the floor. A wooden railing ran along the front
facing the steep hillside. The furniture was simple and homely, a few
low basket chairs and an oval table. In this pavilion the newly married
pair took tea nearly every afternoon after their expeditions in the
neighbourhood, or their strolls through the sunny Moorish Courts. After
tea they sat on and watched the sunset, and fancied they could see the