Why rash hope and foolish fear,
And the prayers which God in pity
Still refused to grant or hear.
Anon.
It was a picturesque group gathered around that table—Zuniga, Hereward and Lilith.
Zuniga, with his slight, elegant and graceful form, his dark complexion—darker still with his luxuriant black curls—fine black eyes, shadowed with black eyelashes, and arched by black eyebrows, and his perfect features, the beautiful mouth not hidden by the twirled moustache divided on the upper lip. Zuniga, with his laughing, reckless, boyish air, seemed the youngest of the group of whom he was the father—or at least the younger of the two men.
Hereward, with his tall and stately figure, his noble head, blonde complexion, severe classic profile, and steel-blue eyes, and with his grave and dignified demeanor, seemed, certainly, the elder of the two.
Lilith, in her simple and elegant morning dress of white foulard silk, which well became her lovely brunette beauty, sat between them, but nearer to the Señor Zuniga.
Had any stranger been told that here sat a married pair and a father, and had been required to tell “which was which,” he would certainly have pointed out Hereward as the father, and the two others as the son and daughter.
Their relative ages were as follows: Zuniga was thirty-eight, Hereward twenty-nine, and Lilith nineteen.