momentarily caught and held the very color of the sky. An azure
fog! Through it the quaint and checkered street--as yet but half
illumined by the sun,--took tones of impossible color; the view
paled away through faint bluish tints into transparent
purples;--all the shadows were indigo. How sweet the
morning!--how well life seemed worth living! Because the sun had
shown his face through a fairy veil of frost! ...

Who was the ancient thinker?--was it Hermes?--who said:--

"The Sun is Laughter; for 'tis He who maketh joyous the thoughts
of men, and gladdeneth the infinite world." ...



The Shadow of the Tide.

I.

Carmen found that her little pet had been taught how to pray; for
each night and morning when the devout woman began to make her
orisons, the child would kneel beside her, with little hands
joined, and in a voice sweet and clear murmur something she had
learned by heart. Much as this pleased Carmen, it seemed to her
that the child's prayers could not be wholly valid unless uttered
in Spanish;--for Spanish was heaven's own tongue,--la lengua de
Dios, el idioma de Dios; and she resolved to teach her to say the
Salve Maria and the Padre Nuestro in Castilian--also, her own
favorite prayer to the Virgin, beginning with the words, "Madre
santisima, toda dulce y hermosa." . . .