"The white sails were not hidden from sight when I began to recover, but a long, lingering illness detained me from home, but thank God I am with you at last, darlings, well and happy."
"And now that my dear papa is home again, I can enjoy the pearls, the beautiful pearls," said Lenore, still toying with the luminous gems.
"More beautiful in your hair than in the golden casket," said the admiring hidalgo.
"The señorita was the second to touch them," he continued, "since Boabdil's minion consigned them to their hiding-place."
"No, I was the second, shrieked the duenna, clasping her hands to her heart, where the chains of servitude were riveted.
"Always a slave," she moaned, as they bore her from the room, flushed with the delirium of fever.
For many days she lay prostrate upon a bed of sickness, but when at last she recovered the evil spirit had passed from her forever.
She was kind and gentle, ready to serve any one, but especially the master.
"I am but the servant of servants," she would say. "I will do my duty in the station whereunto I am called. God have mercy upon my soul."
Don Carlos and the mother lived to see Lenore wife of the handsome hidalgo, and the mother of a maiden beautiful as herself, whose purple hair often glowed in the luminous rays of the wonderful Moorish pearls.