Romeo that Shakespeare dreamed about! Isabel is really an
angel to him. He would really die for her. What has this
Spanish knight of the sixteenth century to do in Texas in the
nineteenth century?"

He answered her mental question in his own charming way. He
was so happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so
compelling, that Antonia granted him, without a word, the
favor his eyes asked for. And the lovers hardly heard the
excuse she made; they understood nothing of it, only that she
would be reading in the myrtle walk for one hour, and, by so
doing, would protect them from intrusion.

One whole hour! Isabel had thought the promise a perfect
magnificence of opportunity{.??} But how swiftly it went.
Luis had not told her the half of his love and his hopes. He
had been forced to speak of politics and business, and every
such word was just so many stolen from far sweeter words--
words that fell like music from his lips, and were repeated
with infinite power from his eyes. Low words, that had the
pleading of a thousand voices in them; words full of melody,
thrilling with romance; poetical, and yet real as the sunshine
around them.

In lovers of a colder race, bound by conventional ties, and a
dress rigorously divested of every picturesque element, such
wooing might have appeared ridiculous; but in Don Luis, the
most natural thing about it was its extravagance. When he
knelt at the feet of his beloved and kissed her hands, the
action was the unavoidable outcome of his temperament. When