Nuera Again.
"Happy places have grown holy;
If ye went where once ye went,
Only tears would fall down slowly.
As at solemn Sacrament
Household names, that used to flutter
Through your laughter unawares,
God's divine one ye can utter
With less trembling in your prayers."--E. B. Browning
A chill and dreary torpor stole over Juan's fiery spirit after the Auto.
The settled conviction that his brother was dead took possession of his
mind. Moreover, his soul had lost its hold upon the faith which he once
embraced so warmly. He had consciously ceased to be true to his best
convictions, and those convictions, in turn, had ceased to support him.
His confidence in himself, his trust in his own heart, had been shaken
to its foundations. And he was very far from having gained in its stead
that strong confidence in God which would have infinitely more than
counter-balanced its loss.
Thus two or three slow and melancholy months wore away. Then,
fortunately for him, events happened that forced him, in spite of
himself, to the exertion that saves from the deadly slumber of despair.
It became evident, that if he did not wish to see the last earthly
treasure that remained to him swept out of his reach for ever, he must
rouse himself from his lethargy so far as to grasp and hold it; for now
Don Manuel _commanded_ his ward to bestow her hand upon his rival, Senor
Luis Rotelo.
In her anguish and dismay, Beatriz fled for refuge to her kind-hearted
cousin, Dona Inez.
Dona Inez received her into her house, where she soothed and comforted
her; and soon found means to despatch an "esquelita," or billet, to Don
Juan, to the following effect:--"Dona Beatriz is here. Remember, my
cousin, 'that a leap over a ditch is better than another man's prayer.'"