On the Azotea.
There are no sluggards on a Texan plantation. The daybreak begins the day; and the bell, conch, or cow-horn, that summons the dark-skinned proletarians to their toil, is alike the signal for their master to forsake his more luxurious couch.
Such was the custom of Casa del Corvo under its original owners: and the fashion was followed by the family of the American planter—not from any idea of precedent, but simply in obedience to the suggestions of Nature. In a climate of almost perpetual spring, the sweet matutinal moments are not to be wasted in sleep. The siesta belongs to the hours of noon; when all nature appears to shrink under the smiles of the solar luminary—as if surfeited with their superabundance.
On his reappearance at morn the sun is greeted with renewed joy. Then do the tropical birds spread their resplendent plumage—the flowers their dew-besprinkled petals—to receive his fervent kisses. All nature again seems glad, to acknowledge him as its god.
Resplendent as any bird that flutters among the foliage of south-western Texas—fair as any flower that blooms within it—gladdest was she who appeared upon the housetop of Casa del Corvo.
Aurora herself, rising from her roseate couch, looked not fresher than the young Creole, as she stood contemplating the curtains of that very couch, from which a Texan sun was slowly uplifting his globe of burning gold.
She was standing upon the edge of the azotea that fronted towards the east; her white hand resting upon the copestone of the parapet still wet with the dews of the night, under her eyes was the garden, enclosed within a curve of the river; beyond the bluff formed by the opposite bank; and further still, the wide-spreading plateau of the prairie.
Was she looking at a landscape, that could scarce fail to challenge admiration? No.
Equally was she unconscious of the ascending sun; though, like some fair pagan, did she appear to be in prayer at its apprising!
Listened she to the voices of the birds, from garden and grove swelling harmoniously around her?