Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

144 XEW ARABIAN NlGIlTS.
lose your friendship, or tell you without disguise the
story of my life.'
It was with a sentiment bordering on devotion, that
Harry passed the window. A semi-barbarous delight in
form and colour had presided over the studied disorder
of the room in which he found himself. It was filled
with dainty stuffs, furs and rugs and scarves of brilliant
hues, and set with elegant and curious trifles — fans on
the mantelshelf, an antique lamp upon a bracket, and on
the table a silver-mounted bowl of cocoa-nut about
half full of unset jewels. The fair Cuban, herself a gem
of colour and the fit masterpiece for that rich frame,
motioned Harry to a seat, and sinking herself into
another, thus began her history.
STOUT OF THE FAIR CUBAN.
I AM not what I seem. My father drew his descent, on
the one hand, from grandees of Spain, and on the other,
through the maternal line, from the patriot Bruce. My
mother, too, was the descendant of a line of kings ; but,
alas ! these kings were African. She was fair as the
day : fairer than I, for I inherited a darker strain of
blood from the veins of my European father ; her mind
was noble, her manners queenly and accomplished ; and
seeing her more than the equal of her neighbours and
surrounded by the most considerate affection and respect,
I grew up to adore her, and when the time came,
received her last sigh upon my lips, still ignorant that
she was a slave and alas ! my father's mistress. Her
death, which befell me in my sixteenth year, was the
first sorrow I had known : it left our home bereaved of
its attractions, cast a shade of melancholy on my youth,
and wrought in my father a tragic and durable change.
Months went by; with the elasticity of my years, I
regained some of the simple mirth that had before dis-