"'Twas only a dream, my daughter," said the mother, tenderly, but still Lenore sobbed. "How could I forget the dear papa, for a stranger and a string of pearls." Then the mother kissed her, and soothed her till she was comforted. Soon after a ship arrived, bringing letters from the father. "I am now in Spain," he wrote, my dear, native land. Bright Castile! the world has nothing like thee! No mountains like the snow-capped Sierras, no valleys like Granadas, and no river like the blue Guadalquivir, but, "where the treasure is, there will the heart be also," and my greatest earthly treasures, wife and child, are in California, and, though far away in castellated Spain, my heart wings its way homeward, and every delight is treasured, to be renewed again, with you. "I shall soon return to you, dear wife, the husband you love, but little daughter, the pearls, 'pure and white as snow, and large and clear as the dew-drops,' I have not found in Spain, but have heard of them, and if possible you shall have them at any price."
He wrote a long letter, glowing with hope and affection, promising a speedy return, and the mother took heart again, and was happy, while Lenore thought with delight, how beautifully the rare, Moorish pearls would glisten in her purple hair.
She seemed to have forgotten the dream, and the legend that frightened her so much. Even the name of pearls chained her listening ear, and the duenna often talked of them, their great beauty, and how pure and lustrous they shone among the crown jewels of the Moorish king, till the imagination of Lenore was spell-bound, by the magic beauty of the wondrous pearls. Often she would say, "Mamma, show me your pearls."
Then she would take them in her hands and count them, or twine them round the bands of her purple hair.
"Beautiful," she would say, as the sunlight kissed them, "but not clear and large enough. 'Pure and white as snow;' and large and clear as the dew-drops, these are not so, but the dear papa will bring them." Lenore's great gift was music.
She would often sit in the twilight, and improvise rare snatches of melody, and when the mother would say, "What is that Lenore?" she would answer, "My string of pearls, mamma," and go on playing as though the genius of music thrilled her dainty fingers. One day the duenna called her to an old lumber-room, to see a picture. The picture was really a good one, but had been cast aside because the frame was broken. 'Twas of a fair young girl, standing upon a rocky shore, looking eagerly out upon the waters, at the white sails of a ship the wind was wafting toward her.
"What does the picture represent, Lenore?" said the duenna. "'Tis a maiden watching on the shore, for the ship that brings her dear papa and the Moorish pearls, clear and white as snow, and large and glistening as the dew-drops." The old duenna smiled, as Lenore took the picture to her room, and hung it over her bed where she could see it on waking.
Every day they went to the sea-shore and looked out upon the waters, for the white sails of the ship that was to bring the father, till at last one evening, when all the west was gorgeous with the radiance of golden sunset clouds, the ship seemed to rise out of the waters, and there, on the sanded sea-shore of Santa Barbara, was the living picture of the lumber-room.
The duenna had called Lenore from the garden early, saying, "At sunset the ship will be here; come pretty child, let us hasten to the shore," so Lenore ran and kissed the mother saying, "Mamma! mamma! the ship, with its white sails spread like the wings of a bird, is flying to us, and I must go. Oh! my snow-white pearls! my beautiful pearls!"
"Lenore! Lenore!" called the duenna, and the maiden ran away dancing, and clapping her hands, as she always did, when very happy. On came the ship till it was moored in the harbor, and with one great rush the passengers came ashore.