The Professor went on; we heard his voice in the rear. “It was called El Verjel (the garden), and its orange grove was the glory of St. Augustine--”
“Hurry!” whispered Sara, “or we shall hear the whole.”
We hastened out into the sunny meadows, catching “killed by lightning”--“1790”--“he sent his oranges to London;” then the voice died away in the distance. John Hoffman kept with us, and we wandered on, looking off over the Matanzas, sweeping on to the south, dotted with sails, and the black dug-outs of the Minorcan fishermen anchored along shore. The tide was out, and the coast-line bare and desolate.
“Nothing that H. H. ever wrote excels her ‘When the tide comes in,’” I said. “Do you remember it?
‘When the tide goes out, The shore looks dark and sad with doubt’--
‘Ah, darling, shall we ever learn Love’s tidal hours and days?’”
“You believe, then, that love has its high and low tides?” said John, lighting a fresh cigar.
“Low tide,” said Sara, half to herself--“low tide always.” She was looking at the bare shore with a sadness that had real roots down somewhere.
“_Very_ low, I suppose,” commented John; “every thing is always very high or very low with you ladies. You are like the man who had a steamer to sell. ‘But is it a low-pressure engine?’ asked a purchaser. ‘Oh yes, _very_ low,’ replied the owner, earnestly.”
“Do you do it on purpose, I wonder?” I thought, with some indignation, as I glanced at John’s imperturbable face. I was very tender always with Sara’s sudden little sadnesses. I think there is no one who comprehends a girl passing through the shadow-land of doubt and vague questioning that lies beyond youth so well as the old maid who has made the journey herself, and knows of a surety that there is sunshine beyond. Obeying a sudden impulse, I asked the question aloud. Sara was in front of us, out of hearing.
“Do I do what on purpose, Miss Martha? Tell anecdotes?”
“You know what I mean very well, Mr. Hoffman. Her sadness was real for the moment; why wound her?”
“Wound her! Is a woman wounded by a trifling joke?”
“But her nature is peculiarly sensitive.”
“You mistake her, I think, Miss Martha. Sara St. John is coated over with pride like an armor; she is invulnerable.”