"So you all remember Robert Barthelemy at the end of your prayers?" asked the youth, embracing the girls in turn as they hung weeping and laughing around his neck.
"Julietta!" said one, "sing William the song you composed about him and the pirates."
"You have composed a song about me and the pirates?" asked the youth.
Julietta flushed crimson and after withdrawing shyly from his embrace she sang in a sweet, tremulous voice:
Far, far away the white dove flies,
In fierce pursuit the black hawk hies,
The dove is my lover so dear,
The hawk is the pirate I fear.
Oh, God, stretch forth Thy mighty arm
My absent lover shield from harm.
Wing the dove's flight,
The black hawk smite;
Back to its nest let the white dove flee,
Whelm the black hawk beneath the sea.
"Do you understand?" asked the younger sister. "You are the dove, and the hawk is—Robert Barthelemy."
The young man showered kisses upon the three beautiful girls, not one of whom suspected that the dear brother, the still dearer lover, whom they embraced was—Robert Barthelemy himself.
Yet it was even so. This quiet little house had sheltered his childhood, the gray-haired woman had taught him to pray, the merry girls to love.
Two families had emigrated to this island, one from Ireland, the other from Corsica; the parents of both speedily succumbed to the foreign climate, and the two families became united under one roof. Julietta grew up as William's sister to become finally his affianced wife.
They were poor, and it pierced the young man to the heart to witness their penury. He longed for a fairer fortune, and often stood on the threshold absorbed in watching some ship vanishing across the sea. He frequently met sailors who came on shore for fresh water, and heard of their wonderful adventures, of countries with golden sands, of the good luck of sailors, and when he returned home he brooded in gloomy silence for hours.