Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/256

 the welcome sound of hoofs returning home:—"çouval,—tacata, tacata, tacata.". ..

And dreaming of the funny little refrain, the stranger fancied he could look into the future of many years. . . . And in the public car of a city railroad, he saw a brown-eyed, sweet-faced woman, whom it seemed he had known a child, but now with a child of her own—asleep there in her arms—and so pale! It was sundown; and her face was turned to the west, where lingered splendid mockeries of summer seas,—golden Pacifics speckled with archipelagoes of rose and fairy-green. But he knew in some mysterious way that she was thinking of seas not of mist,—of islands not of cloud, while the heavy vehicle rumbled on its dusty way, and the hoofs of the mule seemed to beat time to an old Creole refrain—Milet,—tocoto, tocoto tocoto.

THE END