Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/68



", caballero," said the Spanish lady, with a pretty play of fan and eye as she spoke, "you will not return to Mexico, the beautiful city? "

"No, señorita," replied the young man addressed, a handsome boy, about twenty-two years old, olive-skinned and graceful, with black curly hair, that had those bluish lights one sees in the plumage of a raven.

"Y porque?" asked the girl, laying aside her fan for a moment, and concentrating all the deep fire of her eyes upon his face.

The boy did not answer. He made an effort to speak, and turned his head aside. There was a momentary lull in the conversation. Suddenly he burst into tears, and left the room. The beautiful city! Ah! how well he remembered it! The mighty hills sleeping in their eternal winding-sheets of snow, the azure heaven and the bright lake rippled by mountain winds, the plaza and its familiar sights and Rh