“Sigh not! For angels belong not to earth, but to heaven!”
“Has Senhor Guedes been here yet?” asked the gruff voice.
“Not yet, Senhor Dom José,” answered the waiter, wiping the metal cross-bars of the railing with a cloth.
The counsellor continued:—
“There her spirit, soaring upward on spotless wing, shall sing praises to the Eternal; she will not fail to supplicate the Omnipotent for mercies, to shower them on the head of her idolized husband, who one day, do not doubt it, will meet her in those celestial regions, the country of the elect.”
And the voice of the counsellor, as if symbolizing that paradisiac transit, grew flute-like in its intonations.
“Was Senhor Guedes here last night?” persisted the individual in the jacket, resting his elbows on the table, and smoking like a chimney.
“He was here very late,—at about two o’clock in the morning.”
The counsellor shook the paper he was reading, in mute desperation; from behind his dark spectacles his eyes shot the contemptuous glance of an interrupted author at the offending individual. He continued reading, however:—
“And ye, tender souls, shed tears, without forgetting that man should bow to the decrees of Providence—”