Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/68

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Y PORQUE?[1]

"Ah, 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

54
  1. Item, April 17, 1880.