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 nor I either, for dejection, yet, had I been questioned, I could have found no better reason for my despondency than that I felt 'twas all a mistake coming here for happiness.

Strolling aimlessly through the narrow back ways, we came presently to the market that stands against the port. And here, almost at the first step, Dawson catches my arm and nods towards the opposite side of the market-place. Some Moors were seated there in their white clothes, with bundles of young palm leaves, plaited up in various forms of crowns, crosses, and the like,—which the people of this country do carry to church to be blessed on Palm Sunday; and these Moors I knew came from Elche, because palms grow nowhere else in such abundance.

"Yes," says I, thinking 'twas this queer merchandise he would point out, "I noticed these Moors and their ware when we passed here a little while back with Moll."

"Don't you see her there now—at the corner?" asks he.

Then, to my surprise, I perceived Moll in very earnest conversation with two Moors, who had at first screened her from my sight.

"Come away," continues he. "She left us to go back and speak to them, and would not have us know."

Why should she be secret about this trifling matter, I asked myself. 'Twas quite natural that, if she recognised in these Moors some old acquaintance of Elche, she should desire to speak them.

We stole away to the port, and seating ourselves upon some timber, there we looked upon the sea nigh upon half an hour without saying a word. Then turning to me, Dawson says: "Unless she speak to us upon this matter,