ther be called a thicket, of fruit trees. The broad dark leaf of the fig hardly allowed its abundant fruit, in all stages of growth; to meet the eye, but the sunny orange and the yellow lime gleamed from the depths of their verdant canopy, like-to use the odd but striking simile of honest Andrew Marvell- "Like golden lamps in a green night." It was late in the evening. The full unclouded moon shone on the scene here described, lighting up the white walls of the humble cottage and the verdant masses of the orange grove. The tall sugar-cane and the rustling maize-stalks waved their tasselled heads and slender leaves in the soft night-wind Now and then might be heard the sullen hooting of a distant owl, or the harsh sound of a paroquet disturbed in its uneasy slumbers. All other sounds were hushed. The cattle were asleep in the corral, the fowls at roost on their accustomed trees. From the darkness and silence which prevailed, it appeared that all the inhabitants of the cottage were at rest, except in one room, which was lighted up, and into which we will make bold to enter. It was very simply furnished, as is usual throughout Spanish America. The brick floor was covered with fine straw matting. To the whitewashed walls were fastened a few ordinary pictures and engravings. Some light cane chairs were placed around the room, and at the further end was an elevated dais or estrada, covered with the skins of the jaguar and puma, and serving as a lounge for visitors, or a couch for the siesta or afternoon nap. In the centre of the room was a table, made of the wood of the urandig-pitai, a native tree equal to the finest rosewood. Two candles stood upon it, and numerous papers- some folded, and tied with tape, others openwere scattered over it. A young man sat beside the table, deeply engaged in the perusal of one of the documents. He was dressed like a wealthy haciendado, or gentleman farmer. His jacket of blue cloth was adorned with silver buttons, hanging by little chains of an inch in length. His vest of white satin, elegantly tamboured, was open so as to show the embroidered front of his cambric shirt. His green velvet small clothes, tied round the waist by a blue satin sash, were loose at the knees, allowing the ruffled ends of his muslin drawers to appear beneath them. VOL. XII. No. I. 9 They were met by white cotton stockings, and buskin boots of untanned horse-skin. The age of the wearer was apparently about twenty-five. He had the brown complexion, the dark eyes, the black, glossy hair, the thick beard and mustaches, which were proper to his Spanish descent. His handsome features wore an expression of deep sadness, and his brow was occasionally knit, as with indignation, while his eye glanced over the paper which he held. Just behind him, in another chair, but leaning on the back of his, with her eyes fixed earnestly on his face, sat a young woman of extreme beauty both of form and feature. It was a style of beauty, too, which is commonly thought peculiar to northern, or rather to cold climates, but which is, in fact, frequently seen in the interior of South America. Her chestnut hair clustered in natural ringlets round her fair face, and her dark-blue eyes looked out with changeable lustre from beneath their long brown eyelashes. Her slender form, betokening extreme youth, was attired in a simple robe of white muslin, bound at the waist by a ribbon, which was clasped by a golden buckle. It was easy to see that the natural expression of her countenance was bright and cheerful, as of one accustomed to a life of great happiness; but at this moment her look was constrained and anxious, and her eyes were fixed earnestly on the young man, whose attention was engrossed by the manuscripts. At last she spoke, as if unable to endure the silence. "Do you think there is any hope, Enrique?" The young man started, and throwing from him the papers which he held, exclaimed in a tone of mournful bitterness, "What a fool am I to pore over these longwinded pleas, rejoinders, judgments, and all their legal trash, as if they could have any influence on my cause! Do I not know that it was lost from the beginning! It is gold that has done it all-bribery, corruption! The pleading of an angel would not avail against such arguments. We are lost-utterly ruined !" "Surely, Enrique," replied his companion," the judge cannot allow his friendship for Don Manuel to bias him to so frightful a degree? All the city knows that Prieto's claim to your patrimony is utterly unfounded; that your evidence, too, is so strong." "Listen, Rosita," said the young man, " to what I heard this morning from my "I fear I greatly fear: at all events he gives me no hope." "And is there no one," asked Rosita, whom you can trust ?" "Not one of the whole court," replied her husband in a tone of despair. "The only advocate who cannot be bribed, and of whom lawyers and judges alike stand in awe, has long been my implacable enemy." "The Dr. Francia ?" "Yes; ever since that unhappy affair of Gomez and Paredes. I remember well the terrible scowl he wore when he said to me, 'You have wilfully crossed my path; you have injured one who never forgets a favor or an offence.' Since that time, he has done all in his power-openly and fairly I admit to thwart, annoy, and injure me. Nor have I been slow, I confess it, to retaliate. He is an intimate friend of Prieto's. Oh how he must exult in my friend Gomez. How Gomez learned the facts he would not inform me; but he assured me that I might rely upon them. A year ago, when Don Manuel Prieto gave his daughter in marriage to young Echeverria, he said to him, Carlos, choose which you will of my houses in town, or my estates in the country, for your residence, and it is yours.' Echeverria answered, 'I will not rob you of any of your splendid residences or your great plantations. Give me only a little cottage, with an orchard and a few fields about it, like that of Enrique Gonsalez, and I shall be happy.' Then Prieto said, 'If that be all you require, you shall have the very house and farm you speak of.' Thereupon he came to me and offered me a large price for the property-its full worth, and even more. I refused, instantly and positively, to sell my patrimony, which was endeared to me by the recollections of childhood. Why approaching ruin!" should I part with it at any price? Be- "Not, surely," said Rosita, "if he be sides, Rosita, it was at that very time that the honest, upright man he is proclaimed I was preparing to lead you, my lovely, to be. His integrity must revolt at such blushing bride, from your own happy home injustice." to the house of my fathers. Was that a แ There are many time to sell my homestead? I told the old man flatly that all his fortune would not tempt me. Now, this is what I learn from Gomez. When Prieto returned home, he was bursting with fury at his failure, inasmuch as he had given his word to his son-in-law, and had expected that his doubloons would accomplish everything. He swore a solemn oath, that if it cost him his whole fortune, he would have my house and land, and that I should yet beg of him a pittance to save me from starvation." "Santa Maria!--Blessed Virgin! Can this be?" exclaimed the young wife in astonishment. "This this," continued Gonsalez, "is the origin of this sudden and outrageous suit, which at first I considered to be intended only for my annoyance, and as a mode of petty revenge. But it now appears too clearly that he is determined to push it to extremity; and his measures have been taken with such consummate skill, that no resource is left to me. The judge is gained. Every advocate has his retaining fee. I have even begun to doubt my own paid lawyer, Ramirez, who has suddenly become very cautious and cold." "Ramirez! He leagued with the enemy! Oh, Enrique, surely your suspicions mislead you? יין. esteemed very honest," replied Gonsalez, "who will rejoice in a result attained by evil means, provided they are not responsible for the evil-doing. But," he continued, rising from his chair, and pacing the room with hasty steps, "what is it to me who exults or who laments over my unhappy fate? What is certain is, that in three days we are driven forth, to beg or starve, from this house, in which I fondly hoped to spend a long and happy life with thee, my beloved. Ah, Rosita! what day-dreams have been mine of the pleasant future which awaited us here, but which will never be ours to enjoy! It is not for myself that I grieve. I can struggle with the current. But when I think that I have drawn you from the peaceful shelter of your paternal roof in Villa Rica to this distant city, to share in my desperate fortunes, I am ready to go mad with remorse and rage. "And this is the way you treat me!" replied the young wife in an offended tone. "When I, poor, foolish creature, was thinking that my presence and my love would be some alleviation to your misfortune, you do your best to distress me by calling them an aggravation. Come here, sir," she continued, seizing him by the hand, and pulling him with a gentle force to a chair by her side-"sit down by me, you treache * rous man, and tell me what you married and then I will pick and card your cotton, me for. Was it only to have me in your and spin and weave it, and cut it, and make house like a great doll, prettily dressed, it up, and tambour it so, that the governor for a plaything and a show? Or was it himself shall be only too happy to give a merely that I should keep you company, hundred dollars for a shirt from my fingers. and entertain your friends in tertulias, and Moreover, every Saturday I will go into the make your maté,† and see that your clothes market, like the other paisanas, with my were in order, and your dinners well cook- donkey, and my panniers filled with all the ed? No, sir; your ama de llaves did good fruits that you will raise, and all the these things quite as well as I. Well, nice and pretty things that I can makethen, was it to be your helpmate, to love my tarts and pies, my bouquets, my toys you in joy and in sorrow, to comfort you, and cigarrillos! Ah, I think I see myself to toil for you, to pray for you, to believe in a corner of the market-house, in my that there was no unhappiness where you white petticoat and embroidered vest, with were, and to make you believe so too? Oh, my little rebozot on my head, seated in Enrique! you do not know me. You are state on my mat, with all my wares about a man: well, am not I a woman?" "You are an angel, I believe," said Enrique, interrupting her rapid speech by clasping her round the waist. me. I am sure I shall draw all the custom. Buy a water-melon, senor? Buy my candles, senorita-elegant mould candles? Here's your nice new-laid eggs! Here's "Let me alone. I say I am a woman: your beautiful onions! Here's your fine and are there not poor women as well as white yams-yams-yams! Ah, buy a pie, poor men! And do not women have to ma'am, baked this morning, I assure you; toil and suffer as much as men? Yes, or a bunch of elegant flowers, for the dear truly, and a great deal more. Now, En- good saint;§ or a sweet pretty little doll for rique," said the lovely pleader, leaning with the charming little senorita; or a little her clasped hands on her husband's shoul- whip for the dear little senorito to whip his der, and looking fondly in his face, "listen beautiful little horse with?" The lively to my plan, which I have formed while you Rosita mimicked so admirably the tones and were poring over your musty papers. manner of the market-women of AssumpWhen we leave our dear home, which I tion, that her husband shouted "Bravo!" shall regret as much as you, for I have had and clapped his hands, and laughed till the my day-dreams too, Enrique"-and a tear, tears ran down his cheeks. It was a delightunbidden, stood in her bright blue eye-ful scene; and it ended by his clasping "but when we leave it, you shall hire a once more his lovely wife to his bosom, and little hut, and a little piece of ground, such thanking heaven that he had one treasure as we can find for twenty dollars a year, of which Prieto could not deprive him. like that which old Antonio lives in-the At this moment they were startled by a old Mulatto, who talks all the time with loud knock at the door. "Who can it be his Indian wife, who never says anything: just like me, you know." at this hour?" said Enrique. "Some messenger from the city, per"But where are we to find our twenty haps," replied his wife. "Here, Rossi," dollars, you dear little St. Tacita" inter- she said, opening the door of the apartment, rupted Enrique, smiling in spite of him-" go and see who it is that knocks." Rossi, their trusty Mulatto servant, who was nodding in the passage, arose, rubbed his eyes, yawned, and proceeded to obey the commands of his mistress. He returned in a minute with his eyes wide open, and every trace of drowsiness banished by consternation. "Oh, senor! oh, mistress!" he stammered; "it is that man, Dr. Francia! | you my services. Shall I let him in ?" Rossi knew well the inveterate enmity between his master and the doctor, which was indeed notorious to all the city and neighborhood. "Dr. Francia!" exclaimed Gonsalez, no less astonished, and much perplexed. "What can he want with me?" (( Perhaps he comes from Don Manuel to propose some compromise," suggested his wife. "Pray see him by all means. "Well, Rossi, desire the doctor to enter. We shall know our fate." Rossi returned to the door, and shortly afterwards a hasty step was heard in the passage, and the person of whom they spoke entered the room. His tall erect form was clad from head to foot in scholastic black, with the exception of his ample cloak of crimson cloth, which was wrapped around his shoulders after the Spanish fashion. He might be above forty years of age. His face was long, with strongly-marked features; thin lips firmly closed, dark piercing eyes, and a swarthy complexion, but with that peculiar tinge of sallowness acquired by close confinement and study. His dark hair was drawn back from his capacious forehead, and fell in heavy masses on his shoulders. His whole physiognomy conveyed a strong impression of intellect and firmness. He waited for no salutation, but spoke at once. "Senor Don Enrique, I know that my presence here is as unwelcome as it is unexpected." "I am honored," began Gonsalez; but the doctor interrupted him with a hasty motion of the hand. "I do not come to bandy compliments, senor; but on an errand of duty. You are now engaged in a suit with my friend Don Manuel Prieto (he pronounced the word 'friend' with a strong emphasis), by which you are about to lose this house and estate. From what I learn, it appears that this suit is an atrocious outrage on law and justice, and is likely to be gained by a violation of every legal and honest principle. Is this the truth, senor ?" "It is," replied Gonsalez eagerly, "as surely as there is a just God in heaven!" "This must not be, Don Enrique," replied Dr. Francia. "I cannot allow the law, that noble science to which I have devoted my life, to be so perverted to an engine of fraud and oppression. I am the friend of Don Manuel; I am, and ever shall be, your enemy. But I am more the friend Will you trust me with your cause?" "With my life !" exclaimed Gonsalez, astonished and overjoyed. "Oh, senor, under what a load of obligation do you lay me !" "Under none," returned the lawyer, hastily. I serve the cause of justice. We are enemies now and ever!" แ Surely, senor, not now?" exclaimed Rosita. "Not after this?" Madam," replied the doctor, coldly, "neither my friendships nor my enmities are like a cloak, to be put on and off at pleasure, and thrown aside when worn out. These, I perceive, are your documents," he continued, sweeping from the table the pile of papers which lay upon it, and collecting them under his arm within his cloak. "Have no further anxiety, Don Enrique; your cause is safe. I do not think that Don Pedro de Sarmiento will dare to trifle with me!" he said proudly, drawing up his stately form to its full height. "Let him beware: if he turns to the right or to the left, he is lost. Judge of appeal as he is, royal auditor as he styles himself, I will drag him from his seat to ignominy and ruin. What is it come to this, that a corrupt judge and venal advocates shall twist the law with impunity to their own vile ends, and rob us of our fortunes without redress? I, José Gasper Francia, say that this thing shall not be. Farewell, sir; I repeat it, your patrimony is safe. Adieu, madam; I kiss your feet ;" and bowing with ceremonious politeness, the great lawyer abruptly turned, and departed as hastily as he had come. He left behind him glad hearts and joyous countenances. "How much better are the grim doctor's acts than his words!" said Rosita. "Surely he cannot be in earnest when he speaks of enmity" "Dr. Francia seldom speaks in jest," replied Enrique; "but what matters his enmity after this? I defy him to do me as much harm hereafter as he now does me good!" Ill-founded confidence! Alas! there came a time when Gonsalez would have given house and land, and all his hopes of worldly prosperity, to buy even the miserable boon of eternal banishment from the country in which Dr. Francia dwelt ! SCENE THE SECOND. Twelve years have elapsed since the of right, and the enemy of wrong. I offer scene just described. We must now ask "Have you finished your lecture?" inquired Francia with a tone of bitter sarcasm, and a ferocious scowl. our readers to accompany us to the Casa [excellency," continued the young man; de Gobierno, or government house in the "I only thought, that possibly, without city of Assumption, the capital of the free perplexing ourselves by foreign alliances, and independent republic of Paraguay. It we might cultivate an advantageous comis a large low edifice of whitewashed brick, merce by exchanging our surplus producwith no pretensions to elegance or state. tions for their cheap and useful wares." At one extremity of it is a room of moderate size, very poorly furnished. A long table which occupied the upper end, close to the wall, supported a double row of "Ah, pardon!-pardon !" exclaimed the books, and several astronomical and sur- unhappy youth; "I meant not to offend." veying instruments. At a small round "When I took you for my secretary," table, in the centre of the room, was seated continued the unrelenting dictator, "and a youth of pleasing intelligent appearance, favored you by my countenance, I trusted engaged in writing; while a tall elderly that you had at least the sense not to burn man, dressed in black, but with a crimson your fingers by thrusting them wilfully into cloak thrown round his shoulders, walked the fire. So you are a political economist, slowly up and down the room in deep senor! and aspire to be a partner in my thought. It was Francia, no longer a sim-government. Do you know how I treat ple doctor of laws and advocate, but, by such intermeddlers ?" the election of his fellow-citizens, and the "Pardon my folly, my lord!" cried the force of his indomitable will, supreme dic-youth, still more and more terrified. "I tator of Paraguay, the absolute ruler of the will never offend again!" country. There was little change to be "Out! away with you!" thundered perceived in his appearance, except that Francia, stamping violently on the floor. his hair was slightly grizzled, and his coun-"Quit my presence now and for ever! tenance gloomier than ever. At length Remain in your house till further orders. the young man ceased writing, and after I will take care that you never repeat the glancing timidly towards the stern dictator, offence." as if to ask permission, he said, "May it please your excellency, the letter is finished." The unfortunate secretary slunk terrorstricken from the room, while the excited dictator paced up and down like an enraged tiger in his lair. His eyes glared, and "Shall I never find a "Read it," said Francia. The young man read the document, his brow was knit. which was a letter directed to the public tool," he said, "who will not erect himself authorities of Buenos Ayres, positively re-into an adviser ?" Suddenly the door fusing to enter into any treaty, either of opened. "Ha! thou villain, wouldst thou commerce or alliance, with them. When assassinate me?" cried the despot, rushing he had concluded, the dictator said, "Very to the table, on which lay two loaded pisgood. Transcribe it and bring it to me for tols and a drawn sword. my signature. You have a good style, Vil- "Oh, Senor Excellentissimo, it is only larino, and your compositions please me." your poor servant," said the new comer in "Ah, your excellency," stammered the a piteous tone, dropping on his knees; "I youth, much gratified by a speech of thought I heard your lordship's excellency commendation from his stern master, "if bid me enter." the supremo would but allow me to speak." "Well, what is it?" inquired Francia, turning and directing a piercing gaze at his secretary. "Ha, Estevan! is it thou? Beware how thou rushest so hastily into my presence, or thou mayest chance to repent it with a bullet in thy fat carcase. Well, what news?" "I am proud to obey your excellency's commands, whatever they may be," said The person addressed was a little, plump, the young man; "but may I not venture round-faced man, with an air of good-huto express a wish that my honored master mor and sly cunning on his oily features. would regard the foreign policy of our coun- He might be, from his appearance, a small try in a somewhat different light?" shopkeeper, or perhaps a publican. Scratching his head, as if to collect his scattered senses from the shock of his first reception, he replied, "I have not much to tell your excellency, but I learn that Don Domingo Well, go on!" said the dictator in a deep harsh tone, observing that the secretary hesitated. I shall be miserable if I offend your |
