“An answer came from England, saying the only member of my father’s family living was Sir Alfred Pelham, and he was traveling on the Continent; that he would make a point of seeing me, and seeing what could be done for me, before he returned.
“One day the sun was shining down on Granada, and the myrtles were all in bloom; my aunt, as Donna Maria wished me to call her, had fallen fast asleep, and I went down to the fountain that stood under the shade of tall, spreading trees, the silvery spray reached the leaves and wetted them, then fell with what seemed a laugh at its own graceful waywardness. I liked to watch the spray, when the sun shone through it; it was like a diamond shower. The music of falling water always carries me back to that day. I was looking intently into the water, thinking the thousand thoughts that fill a young girl’s mind, when I was startled suddenly by seeing in the water the reflection of a face close to my own. Had the face been less handsome I might have sprung away in startled alarm; as it was, I looked, and looked again, so meeting my fate. It was an English face, laughing, careless, debonair, with a kind of frank beauty that seemed to me perfection. The eyes were laughing, large and blue, with a certain expression that said: ‘I defy you not to like me, try as you will.’ The hair was of a rich, golden brown; as he stood there in the sunshine there seemed to be threads of gold running through it. I could not see what the mouth was like, for the golden mustache drooped over and hid it. I was then only just seventeen, and I had seen no one in all my life to be compared to this handsome stranger.
“‘Am I mistaken,’ said a deep, rich voice, ‘or is this my young kinswoman, Miss Payton?’
“The English tongue was not new to me, for my mother had loved it well; but his words struck me; they moved the deep waters of my soul—they called into life a hundred thoughts that had lain dormant.
“‘I am Sir Alfred Pelham,’ he continued, ‘and a letter received some time since tells me I have a beautiful young kinswoman here in Granada. Is it true?’
“‘Yes,’ I stammered, ‘quite true. I am Captain Payton’s daughter. Will you come in and see my aunt, Donna Maria?’
“I was old enough to understand the deep admiration his eyes expressed for me.
“‘Yes, I will go in,’ he said, ‘but not just yet. Stay out in the sunshine a little longer.’
“I stayed; it would have been well for me if I had died there by the side of that rippling fountain before greater harm came to me. Sir Alfred Pelham was then what perhaps people think him now, one of the handsomest and most fascinating of men. I believe he could do anything that he made up his mind to do. I do not think any one could resist him. He had—perhaps has—a charm of manner, in which no one ever surpassed him. I stayed with him in the sunshine, and that one-half hour changed the whole current of my life. I learned during it a lesson that was very fatal to me. He talked to me about England, about my mother, of everything he thought would interest me, and my girlish heart went out to him, as it had never gone out before. He knew, he understood. Then, when he had heard my simple little story, and had drawn from me every little detail of my life, he went in to see Donna Maria.”
She stopped suddenly, and looked shyly at Kenelm.