The Swan has left his native lake, or rather, his pool; he has crossed the Atlantic on the wings of steam. Will he ever return? Will he come back with a sallow countenance, a disordered liver, and some thousands of dollars, in bills of exchange, in his pocketbook, to end his life where it began, as the ship disabled by storms receives its last repairs in the dockyard in which it was built? Will the black vomit, that terrible malady of the Antilles, the scourge of the Iberians who seek to emulate Columbus conquering a new world, attack him on his arrival on the young continent? Will he remain in the tropics, riding in his carriage, united in the bonds of matrimony to some Creole? Will he preside one day over one of those diminutive republics, in which the doctors are generals and the generals doctors? Will his melancholy be cured by the salty kiss of the ocean breeze, by the contact of virgin soil, the sharp spur of necessity, that, pushing him into the conflict, will say to him, "Work"?

History may perhaps at some future day relate the story of the metamorphosis of the Swan, of his wanderings and his vicissitudes; but years must first elapse, for it was only yesterday, as one might say, that Segundo GarcÍa quitted Vilamorta, leaving the schoolmistress behind him dissolved in tears. And the story of the schoolmistress is the only episode in the chronicle of the Swan which we can at present bring to an end.

Leocadia was the theme of much gossip in Vilamorta. She was seriously ill, according to some, according to others, ruined, and according to many, touched in her mind. She had been seen haunting the neighborhood of Segundo's house on various nights during the poet's illness; it was affirmed that she had sold her land and that her house was mortgaged to Clodio Genday; but the strangest thing of all, that which was most bitterly censured, was her neglect of her son after having cared for him and watched over him from his infancy, never going to Orense to see him, while old Flores went there constantly, bringing back worse and worse news of the child every time she went—that he was wasting away, that he spit blood, that he was dying of grief, that he would not last a month. Leocadia, as she listened, would let her chin fall upon her breast, and at times her shoulders would move convulsively, as if she were weeping. Otherwise she appeared calm, although she was very silent and had lost her former activity. She helped Flores in the kitchen, attended to the children of the school, swept and dusted—all like an automaton, while Flores, who pitilessly spied out every occasion to find fault with her, took pleasure in crying:

"Woman, you have left this side of the pan dirty—woman, you haven't mended your skirt—woman, what are you thinking about? I am going to Orense to-day and you will have to take care of the puchero."

At the end of the summer Clodio demanded the interest on his loan and Leocadia was unable to pay it; she was notified accordingly that, after the necessary legal proceedings, the creditor would avail himself of his legal right to take possession of the house. This was a terrible blow for Leocadia.

It will sometimes happen that a prisoner, a distinguished personage, a king, it may be, shut up through an adverse fate within the walls of a dungeon, stripped of his grandeur, deprived of all that once constituted his happiness, will bear his ills for years with resignation, calm in appearance although dejected, but if some day, by the cruel tyranny of his jailors, this prisoner is deprived of some bauble, some trifling object for which he had conceived an affection, the grief pent up within his bosom will burst its bounds, and the wildest manifestations of grief will follow. Something like this happened to Leocadia when she learned that she must abandon forever the beloved little house where she had spent in Segundo's company hours unique in her existence; the little house in which she was mistress, which had been rebuilt with her savings, the little house lately so neat and so attractive, of which she was so proud.

Flores heard her on several nights sobbing loudly, but when on one or two occasions, moved by an involuntary feeling of pity, the old woman went into her room to ask her what ailed her, if she could do anything for her, Leocadia, covering her face with the bedclothes, had answered in a dull voice: "There is nothing the matter with me, woman; let me sleep. You will not even let me sleep!"

During those days her moods varied constantly and she formed a thousand different plans. She talked of going to live in Orense, of giving up the school and taking sewing to do in the house; she talked, too, of accepting the proposal of Clodio Genday, who, having dismissed his young servant, for what reason no one knew, offered to take Leocadia as his housekeeper, by which arrangement she would remain in her house, Flores, of course, being dismissed. None of these plans lasted for more than a very short time, but were all in turn rejected to give place to others no less ephemeral; and while the schoolmistress was thus engaged in forming and rejecting plans the time was fast approaching when she should find herself without a shelter.

One market day Leocadia went to purchase various articles urgently needed by Flores, among others a sieve and a new chocolate-pot, the old one being no longer fit for use. The movement of the crowd, the jostling of the hucksters, and the glare of the autumnal sun made her head, weak from want of sleep, from fasting, and from suffering—slightly dizzy. She stopped before a stall where sieves were sold, a sort of variety booth, where innumerable indispensable trifles were for sale—chocolate-beaters, frying-pans, saucepans, kerosene lamps. In a corner were two articles of merchandise in great request in the place—consisting of pink paper, soft, like brown paper, and some whitish powder, resembling spoiled flour. Leocadia's glance fell on these, and the vender, thinking she wished to buy some, began to extol their properties, explaining that the pink sheets moistened and placed on a plate, would not leave a fly alive in the neighborhood, and that the white powder was seneca, for killing mice, the manner of using it being to mix it well with cheese and place the mixture, made into little balls, in their haunts. Leocadia asked the price and told the vender to give her a small quantity, and the woman, to appear generous, took up a good portion on the spatula, wrapped it up in paper, and gave it to her for a trifling sum. The drug indeed was of little value, being very common in that part of the country, where native arsenic abounds in the calcareous spar forming one of the banks of the Avieiro, and arsenic, acid—rat-poison—is sold openly in the fairs, rather than in drug shops. The schoolmistress put away the powder, bought, through complaisance, half a dozen of the pink slips of paper, and on her return home punctually delivered to Flores the articles she had been commissioned to purchase.

Flores noticed that after dinner Leocadia shut herself up in her bedroom, where the old woman could hear her talking aloud as if she were praying. Accustomed to her eccentricities the servant thought nothing about the matter. When she had ended her prayer, the schoolmistress stepped out on the balcony, where she stood gazing for a long time at the flower-pots; she then went into the parlor and looked for a good while also at the sofa, the chairs, the little table, the spots which reminded her of the past. Then she went into the kitchen. Flores declared afterward—but in such cases who is there that does not lay claim to a prophetic instinct—that Leocadia's manner on entering had attracted her attention.

"Have you any fresh water?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Give me a glass of it."

Flores affirmed that, as she took the glass, the hand of the schoolmistress trembled, as if she had a chill, and the strangest part of the matter was that, although there was no sugar in the water, Leocadia asked for a spoon, which she put into the glass. An hour, or perhaps an hour and a half passed, when Flores heard Leocadia groan. She hurried to her room and saw her lying on the bed, her face frightfully pale, making desperate and fruitless efforts to vomit. Then a cold perspiration broke out on the forehead of the sick woman, and she remained motionless and speechless. Flores, terrified, ran for Don Fermin, urging him to hurry, saying this was no jesting matter. When Don Fermin arrived out of breath, he asked:

"What is this, Leocadia? What is the matter with you; my dear woman, what is the matter with you?"

Opening her dilated eyes, she murmured:

"Nothing, Don Fermin, nothing."

Standing on the table at the head of the bed was the glass; it contained no water, but the bottom and the sides of the vessel were coated with a white powder which had remained undissolved and which the schoolmistress, not wishing to leave it there, had scraped off in places with the spoon. It is proper to say, on this occasion also, that the illustrious Tropiezo made no mistake in the treatment of so simple a case. Tropiezo had already fought some battles with this common toxic substance and knew its tricks; he had recourse, without a moment's delay, to the use of powerful emetics and of oil. Only the poison, having gained the start of him, had already entered into the circulation and ran through the veins of the schoolmistress, chilling her blood. When the nausea and the vomiting ceased several little red spots—an eruption similar to that of scarlet-fever—made their appearance on Leocadia's pallid face. This symptom lasted until death came to set her sad spirit free and release it from its sufferings, which was toward daybreak. Shortly before her death, during an interval of freedom from pain, Leocadia, making a sign to Flores to come nearer, whispered in her ear: "Promise me—that the child shall not know it—by the soul of your mother—don't tell him—don't tell him the manner of my death."

A few days later Tropiezo was defending himself to the party at Agonde's who, for the pleasure of making him angry, were accusing him of being responsible for the death of the schoolmistress.

"For one thing, they called me too late, much too late," he said; "when the woman was almost in her death agony. For another, she had taken a quantity of arsenic which was not large enough to produce vomiting, but which was too small to cause merely a colic and be done with it. Where I made the mistake was in waiting so long before sending for the priest. I did it with the best intentions, so as not to frighten her and hoping we might yet pull her through. When extreme unction was administered she had no senses left to know what was going on."

"So that," said Agonde maliciously, "where you are called in, either the soul or the body is sure to meet with a trip."

The company applauded the joke, and there followed funereal jests mingled with expressions of pity. Clodio Genday, the creditor of the deceased, moved about uneasily in his chair. What stupid conversation, canario! Let them talk of more cheerful subjects!

And they talked of very cheerful and satisfactory subjects indeed. SeÑorito de Romero had promised to put a telegraph-office in Vilamorta; and the newspapers were saying that, owing to the increasing importance of the viticultural interests of the Border, a branch railroad was needed for which the engineers were soon coming to survey the ground.

THE END.

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THE ANGLOMANIACS.

A Story of New York Society To-day.

By MRS. BURTON HARRISON.

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