Page:Tales of Today.djvu/215

Rh And which has not its equal in the blue sky, And to that one my heart goes forth As the water flows, seeking its level.

"Ever since that Easter Monday Juan Araquil, usually so cheerful, had been morose and very gloomy, having but little to say, and there was never a smile to be seen on the face of Father Tiburcio Chegaray down there in his home. The reason of it was that that good-for-nothing urchin Love had passed that way.

"Oh! it was an absorbing, an engrossing love, that fell on them as swiftly as a thunder-clap. It happens that way, sometimes. She dreamed of him; he could think of nothing but her. He was as melancholy as a garden where there are no flowers, and his love did not improve his temper. Why? Because he had not a douro in his pocket, and Pepa was rich, and, what was worse yet. Father Tiburcio, that man of iron, had told his daughter that never, never would he give his Pepa to a man whose sole fortune was his tennis-ball. But after all,' Araquil said to Father Chegaray one day, 'Pepa loves me; she has told me that she does.'

She has told me so, too,' replied the father.

I adore her. I am mad with love for her. I shall kill myself unless you give her to me. What must I do to obtain her for my wife?'

Do what I have always done,' replied the farmer, 'work, and bring home the wherewithal to buy bread for the children. I have not toiled all my life long to throw away my money and my daughter on a man who does nothing but hang around the romerias. When you can come to me and tell me that you have