in space, wears a halo, a vague, blue loveliness, which is all unreal.  The tired wayfarer, who is weary with the dust, the din, and stony footing of the Actual and the Present, may sometimes fondly imagine, that, if he could return to the far Past, he would find all smooth and golden there; but it is a pleasant delusion of that glorious arch-cheat, the Imagination.  Yet if we cannot go back to the Past, we can march forward to a Future, which opens a deeper and more wondrous and airier vista, with its magicians of the Actual casting into shade the puny achievements of old necromancy and mythic agencies.

* * * * *

JUANITA.

Yes!  I had, indeed, a glorious revenge!  Other people have had home, love, happiness; they have had fond caresses, tender cares, the bright faces of children shining round the board.  I had none of these; my revenge has stood to me in place of them all.  And it has stood well.

Love may change; loved ones may die; the fair-faced children may grow up hard-hearted and ungrateful.  But my revenge will not deceive or disappoint me; it cannot change or pass away; it will last through Time into Eternity.

I was left an orphan in early childhood.  My father was an officer in the American Navy; my mother a Spaniard.  She was very beautiful, I always heard; and her miniature, which my father’s dying hand placed about my neck, proclaimed her so.  A pale, clear, olive tint, eyes of thrilling blackness, long, lustrous hair, and a look of mingled tenderness and melancholy made it, in my thought, the loveliest face that mortal eyes could see.

My parents left me no fortune, and I fell to the care of my father’s only brother, a man of wealth and standing.  I have no story to tell of the bitterness of dependence,—­of slights, and insult, and privation.  My uncle had married, somewhat late in life, a young and gentle woman; when I was twelve years old she became the mother of twins,—­two lovely little girls.  No one, unacquainted with the family history, could have supposed that I was other than the elder sister of Florence and Leonora.  Every indulgence was granted me, every advantage of dress and education bestowed upon me.  So far as even I could see, my uncle and aunt regarded me as their own child.  Nor was I ungrateful, but repaid them with a filial reverence and affection.

I did not inherit the fulness of my mother’s beauty, but had yet some traits of her,—­the pale, clear skin, the large, black eyes, the glossy and abundant hair.  Here the resemblance ceased.  I have heard my uncle say,—­how often!—­“Your mother, Juanita, had the most perfect form I ever saw, except in marble”; all Spanish women, indeed, he told me, had a full, elastic roundness of shape and limb, rarely seen among our spare and loose-built nation.  I was American in form, at least,—­slight and stooping, with a certain awkwardness, partly to be imputed to my rapid growth, partly to my shyness