clatter of blocks and rattle of cordage came from the unseen vessel, now
standing out to sea, he whispered again, "So, this is what thou didst
hear, even then." And so during the night he marked, more or less
audibly to the half-conscious woman at his side, the low whisper of the
waves, the murmur of the far-off breakers, the lightening and thickening
of the fog, the phantoms of moving shapes, and the slow coming of the
dawn. And when the morning sun had rent the veil over land and sea,
Antonio and Jose found him, haggard, but erect, beside the trembling
old woman, with a blessing on his lips, pointing to the horizon where a
single sail still glimmered:--

"Va Usted con Dios."





A BLUE GRASS PENELOPE




CHAPTER I


She was barely twenty-three years old. It is probable that up to that
age, and the beginning of this episode, her life had been uneventful.
Born to the easy mediocrity of such compensating extremes as a small
farmhouse and large lands, a good position and no society, in that vast
grazing district of Kentucky known as the "Blue Grass" region, all the