When flowers glimmered and Venus smiled and all things else were
dim, they turned on one of those little paths hand in hand
homeward.
Dona Mirana glanced once at her daughter's eyes and said nothing.
Don Alderon renewed his talk with Rodriguez, giving reasons for
his apprehension of the conquest of the world by the Moors, which
he had thought of since last night; and Rodriguez agreed with all
that Don Alderon said, but understood little, being full of dreams
that seemed to dance on the further, side of the candlelight to a
strange, new, unheard tune that his heart was aware of. He gazed
much at Serafina and said little.
He drank no wine that night with Don Alderon: what need had he of
wine? On wonderful journeys that my pen cannot follow, for all the
swiftness of the wing from which it came; on darting journeys
outspeeding the lithe swallow or that great wanderer the white-
fronted goose, his young thoughts raced by a myriad of golden
evenings far down the future years. And what of the days he saw?
Did he see them truly? Enough that he saw them in vision. Saw them
as some lone shephered on lifted downs sees once go by with music
a galleon out of the East, with windy sails, and masts ablaze with
pennants, and heroes in strange dress singing new songs; and the
galleon goes nameless by till the singing dies away. What ship was
it? Whither bound? Why there? Enough that he has seen it. Thus do
we glimpse the glory of rare days as we swing round the sun; and
youth is like some high headland from which to see.
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