The Argosy — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters from Majorca. 123- “ Delightful!” I returned. ‘ Nothing could be better. And who: waits upon you at the Fonda del Pastor?” ‘Oh, two very inexperienced sort of girls,” replied A., withdraw- ing his beautifully frank gaze, and studying his boots. ‘ Young sort of things, very foolish and unsophisticated, the daughters of the land- lord ; not at all up to the mark of the old woman at the other fonda.” “ Are they pretty ?” asked H. C., very irrelevantly, as I thought. What could it matter to him whether they were pretty or plain?’ Why will people ask unnecessary and stupid questions? But some: people are always asking questions, and a very great part of English: conversation consists of questions and answers, ‘“That is a matter of taste,” replied A. “They are soft and cooing—to their father and mother, I mean,” he added hastily, with a strong flush. ‘I prefer the severe and the majestic. I have never yet met with my ideal. I never expect todo so.” ‘A sort of female Colossus of Rhodes,” said H.C. ‘That isa very fine sentiment. I agree with you. How beautiful it would be to rise to the grandeur of such a subject in the sublimity of an epic poem, for example.” “You will find the old woman at the other fonda much more inspiring,” replied A., somewhat anxiously. ‘“ Allow me to direct .your coachman, so that there may be no mistake.” ‘ After all this care you will be surprised to hear that in the.end— I don’t know how the confusion came about—a mistake did occur, and we actually descended at the Fonda del Pastor. It was all the fault of that stupid coachman, I am persuaded, whose brains are composed of nothing but cotton wool. Away we dashed, with that aristocratic rumble which is as unmis- takable in its way as the call of the night watchman, or the cry of the screech owl that so often startles the silence of these Palma nights. Away we dashed, I say, under the now leafless plane trees of the Rambla, and out by the railway station. All this was familiar ground, and for some time we followed the road which led to Miramar. Then we branched off to the right. Far ahead of us stretched the hills, and we were about to go over the highest pass in the island. In climbing the heights of Valldemosa, you will remember that we had encountered that tremendous storm ; to-day we were favoured with cloudless skies. Whatever Paolo’s faults, he is a capital driver, and does not spare his cattle. The long, straight road at length came to an end, and we began to ascend the windings of the pass. Soon we were looking behind us into a fair and fertile valley and luxuriant plains. At the commencement of the zigzags we found a charming house with a long avenue of cypréss trees enclosed in fine gates of wrought iron. Within great walls were groves of orange and lemon trees, mingling comicbooks.com