It was some years now since it had grouped itself, a tableau of gray ghosts, in his memory, but he invoked it to-day, although it seemed to have no place in the hot languid morning with that Southern sea hiding its bitter fruit breaking almost at the feet of this long white red-tiled Mission whose silver bells had once called hundreds of Indians to prayer. (They rang with vehemence still, but few responded.) Nevertheless the memory rose and held him.

His mother, a widow, had kept a little shop in his native village.  He had gone to school since the tender age of five, and had paid more attention to his books than to the village battle-ground, for he grew rapidly, and was very delicate until the change to the new world made a man of him.  But he loved his books, the other boys were kind to him, and altogether he was not ill-pleased with his life when one day his mother bade him put on his best clothes and come with her to a wedding.  He grumbled disdainfully, for he had an interesting book in his hand; but he was used to obey his mother; he tumbled into his Sunday clothes and followed her and other dames to the old stone church at the top of the village.  The daughter of the great family of the neighborhood was to be married that morning, and all the little girls of John’s acquaintance were dressed in white and had strewn flowers along the main street and the road beyond as far as the castle gates.  He thought it a silly business and a sinful waste of posies; but in the church-yard he took his place in the throng with a certain feeling of curiosity.

The bride happened to be one of the beauties of her time; but it was not so much her beauty that made John stare at her with expanding eyes and mouth as she drove up in an open carriage, then walked down the long path from the gate to the church.  He had seen beauty before; but never that look and air of a race far above his own, of light impertinent pride, never a lissome daintily stepping figure, and a head carried as if it bore a star rather than a bridal wreath.  He had not dreamed of anything alive resembling this, and he knew she was not an angel.  After she had entered the church he drew a long breath and glanced sharply at the village beauties.  They looked like coarse red apples; and, alas, his mother was of their world.

When the bride reappeared he stared hard at her again, but this time he noticed that there were similar delicate beings in her train.  She was not the only one of her kind, then.  The discovery filled him with amazement, which was followed by a curious sensation of hope.  He broke away from his mother and ran after the carriage for nearly a mile, determined to satisfy his eager eyes as long as might be.  The bride noticed him, and, smiling, tossed him a rose from her bouquet.  He had that flower yet.