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MUSICAL AND LITERARY MISCELLANY.
83
"Are Maria, Senor!" exclaimed the damsel,
blushing still deeper with confusion and surprise,
for never beforjs had she received such a salutation.
The modest page made a thousand apologies, as-
suring her it was the way, at court, of expressing
the most profound homage and respect.
Her anger, if angf r she felt, was easily pacified,
but her agitation aod embarrassment continued,
and she sat blushing deeper and deeper, with her
eyes cast down upon her work, entangling the silk
which she attempted to wind.
The cunning page saw the confusion in the op-
posite camp, and would fain have profited by it, but
the fine speeches he would have uttered died upon
his lips, his attempts at gallantry were awkward
and ineffectual, and to his surprise, the adroit page,
who had figured with such grace and effrontery
among the most knowing and experienced ladles of
the court, found himself awed and abashed in the
presence of a simple damsel of fifteen.
In fact, the artless maiden, in her own modesty
and innocence, had guardians more efi'ectual than
the bolts and bars prescribed by her vigilant aunt.
Still, where is the female bosom proof against the
first whisperings of love? The little damsel, with
all her artlessness, instinctively comprehended all
that the faltering tongue of the page failed to express ,
and her heart was fluttered at beholding, for the first
time, a lover at her feet — and such a lover !
The diifidence of the page, though genuine, was
short-lived, and he was recovering his usual ease
and confidence, when a shrill voice was heard at a
distance.
"My aunt is returning from mass !" cried the dam-
sel in affright: " I pray you, Senor, depart."
" Not until you grant me that rose from your hair
as a remembrance."
She hastily untwisted the rose from her raven
locks. " Take it," cried she, agitated and blushing,
" but pray begone."
The page took the rose, and at the same time co-
vered with kisses the fair hand that gave it. Then,
placing the flower in his bonnet, and taking the
falcon upon his fist, he bounded oH' through the gar-
den, bearing away with him the heart of the gentle
Jacinta.
When the vigilant aunt arrived at the tower, she
remarked the agitation of her niece, and an air of
confusion in the hall; but a word of explanation
sufliced. " A ger-falcon had pursued his prey into
the hall."
" Mercy on us, to think of a falcon flying into the
tower. Did ever one hear of so saucy a hawk? Why,
thevery bird in the cage is not safe !"
The vigilant Fredegonda was one of the most
wary of ancient spinsters. She had a becoming
terror and distrust of what she denominated ■' the
opposite sex," which had gradually increased through
a long life of celibacy. Not that the good lady had
ever suffered from their wiles, nature having set up
a safeguard in her face that forbade all trespass up-
on her premises ; but ladies who have least cause to
fear for themselves, are most ready to keep a watch
over their more tempting neighbours.
The niece was the orphan of an officer who had
fallen in the wars. She had been educated in a
convent, and had recently been transferred from her
sacred asylum to the immediate guardianship of her
aunt, underwhose overshadowing care she vegetated
in obscurity, like an opening rose blooming beneath
a briar. Nor indeed is this comparison entirely acci-
dental; for, to tell the truth, her fresh and dawning
beauty had caught the public eye, even in her seclu-
sion, and with that poetical turn common to the peo-
ple of Andalusia, the peasantry of the neighbourhood
had given her the appellation of ' the Rose of the
Alhambra.'
The wary aunt continued to keep a faithful watch
over her tempting little niece as long as the court
continued at Granada, and flattered herself that her
vigilance had been successful. It is true the good
lady was now and then discomposed by the tinkling
of guitars and chanting of low ditties from the moon-
lit groves beneath the tower; but she would exhort
her niece to shut her ears against such idle minstrelsy,
assuring her that it was one of the arts of the opposite
sex, by which simple maids were often lured to their
undoing. Alas ! what chance with a simple maid
has a djy lecture against a moonlight serenade ?
At length King Philip cut short his sojourn at
Granada, and suddenly departed with all his train.
The vigilant Fredegonda watched the royal pageant
as it issued from the gate of Justice, and descended
the great avenue leading to the city. When the
last banner disappeared from her sight, she returned
exulting to her tower, for all her cares were over;
To her surprise, a light Arabian steed pawed the
ground at the wicket gate of the garden: — to her
horror, she saw through the thickets of roses a youth,
in gaily embroidered dress, at the feet of her niece.
At the sound of her footsteps he gave a tender adieu,
bounded lightly over the barrier of reeds and myr-
tles, sprang upon his horse, and was out of sight in
an instant. The tender Jacinta, in the agony of her
grief, lost all thought of her aunt's displeasure.
Throwing herself into her arms, she broke forth in-
to sobs and tears.
" Ay de mi !" cried she ; " he's gone ! — he's gone !
— he's gone ! and I shall never see him more !"
" Gone ! — who is gone ? — what youth is that I saw
at your feet ?"
" A queen's page, aunt, who came to bid me fare-
well."
" A queen's page, child !" echoed the vigilant
Fredegonda faintly ; " and when did you become
acquainted with a queen's page ?"
" The morning that the gerfalcon came into the
tower. It was the queen's gerfalcon, and he came
in pursuit of it."
" Ah silly, silly girl ! know that there are no ger-
falcons half so dangerous as these young pranking
pages, and it is precisely such simple birds as thee
that they pounce upon."
The auut was at first indignant at learning that
in despite of her boasted vigilance, a tender inter-
course had been carried on by the youthful lovers,
almost beneath her eye; but when she found that
her simple hearted niece, though thus exposed, with-
out the protection of bolt or bar, to all the machina-
tions of the opposite sex, had come forth unsingjd
from the fiery ordeal, she consoled herself with the
persuasion that it was owing to the chaste and cau-
tious maxims, in which she had, as it were, steeped
her to the very lips.
While the aunt laid this soothing unction to her
pride, the niece treasured up the oft repeated vows
of fidelity of the page. But what is the love of rest-
less, roving man ? A vagrant stream that dallies for
a time witli each flower upon its bank, then passes
on, and leaves them all in tears.
Days, weeks, months elapsed, and nothing more
was heard of the page. The pomegranite ripened,
the vine yielded up its fruit, the autumnal rains
descended in torrents from the mountain; the Sierra