Everything was trim
and neat.
The three rode down the slope toward the house, but halfway to the
bottom they reined in their ponies and listened. Some one was singing.
On the thin wintry air a deep mellow voice rose and they distinctly
heard the words:
Soft o'er the fountain, ling'ring falls the southern moon,
Far o'er the mountain breaks the day too soon.
In thy dark eyes' splendor, where the warm light loves to dwell,
Weary looks yet tender, speak their fond farewell.
'Nita, Juanita! Ask thy soul if we should part,
'Nita, Juanita! Lean thou on my heart.
It was a wonderful voice that they heard, deep, full, and mellow,
all the more wonderful because they heard it there in those lone
mountains. The ridges took up the echo, and gave it back in tones
softened but exquisitely haunting.
The three paused and looked at one another. They could not see the
singer. He was hidden from them by the dips and swells of the valley,
but they felt that here was no common man. No common mind, or at least
no common heart, could infuse such feeling into music. As they listened
the remainder of the pathetic old air rose and swelled through the
ridges:
When in thy dreaming, moons like these shall shine again,
And daylight beaming prove thy dreams are vain,
Wilt thou not, relenting, for thy absent lover sigh?
In thy heart consenting to a prayer gone by!
'Nita, Juanita! Let me linger by thy side!
'Nita, Juanita! Be thou my own fair bride.
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