one feels instinctively the nobility of your mind and the purity of
your heart. To see you is to see a celestial being who, through the
forgetfulness of Heaven, remains upon the earth; you are an angel, and I
adore you."

When he had said this it seemed as if he had fulfilled an important
mission. Rosarito, overcome by the violence of her emotion, felt her
scant strength suddenly fail her; and, half-fainting, she sank on a
stone that in those pleasant solitudes served as a seat. Pepe bent over
her. Her eyes were closed, her forehead rested on the palm of her hand.
A few moments later the daughter of Dona Perfecta Polentinos gave her
cousin, amid happy tears, a tender glance followed by these words:

"I loved you before I had ever seen you."

Placing her hands in those of the young man she rose to her feet, and
their forms disappeared among the leafy branches of an oleander walk.
Night was falling and soft shadows enveloped the lower end of the
garden, while the last rays of the setting sun crowned the tree-tops
with fleeting splendors. The noisy republic of the birds kept up a
deafening clamor in the upper branches. It was the hour in which, after
flitting about in the joyous regions of the sky, they were all going
to rest, and they were disputing with one another the branches they
had selected for sleeping-places. Their chatter at times had a sound
of recrimination and controversy, at times of mockery and merriment. In
their voluble twitter the little rascals said the most insulting things
to each other, pecking at each other and flapping their wings, as
orators wave their arms when they want to make their hearers believe
the lies they are telling them. But words of love were to be heard there
too, for the peace of the hour and the beauty of the spot invited to it.