Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/137

Rh entire trust, deep humility, and earnest conviction, could make one. True, the Bible was almost the only religious book she had ever read, but she had indeed read it with all her heart. She was leaning over the sacred volume one night, when a dark shadow fell upon the very lines she was reading. Beatrice looked up and saw a man standing before her; the huge somberosombrero [sic] overshadowed his face, but the light of the lamp shone on a large and glittering knife in his girdle. She started from her seat; but mastering her fear in a moment, she stood, and, calmly facing the stranger, inquired his errand. The man laughed.

"Your father need not be ashamed of you; but if you had been frightened, it would have been at nothing." "My father!" exclaimed Beatrice; "Is he safe?" "Safe enough, if he will but keep quiet; but I bring a note from him, and you had better read that than question me. I am not over-safe in these quarters myself. I have kept faith with him—mind that when you see your father." Laying a soiled and crumpled letter on the table, the smuggler turned to depart.