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Swallows dart across the stream, and sometimes the low call of a wood-dove sounds from far away. A cricket shrieks, and stops suddenly, as if shocked at the discordant sound of its own voice.
To his slower temperament and saddened nature they seemed preternatural; as if she were all of a sudden changed into a bird, or some gay creature outside the pale of human life, outside and above it. "You speak as the birds sing, my Majella," he said slowly. "It was well to name you Majel; only the wood-dove has not joy in her voice, as you have. She says only that she loves and waits."
Sorrow there was, it is true, but only a mellow phase of it, a vague uncertainty and wonder, which would sometimes cause her eyes to fill with tears. You have heard the wood-dove calling in the lone stillness of the summertime; you have found the unheeded brooklet singing and babbling where no ear comes to hear.
A look of swift intelligence from Alessandro reassured him. "Indian on the mother's side!" said Alessandro, "and she belongs in heart to our people. She is alone, save for me. She is one blessed of the Virgin, Ysidro. She will help us. The name Majel I have given her, for she is like the wood-dove; and she is glad to lay her old name down forever, to bear this new name in our tongue."
No, not all; one other thing comforted him, the notes of two wood-doves, that at intervals he heard, cooing to each other; just the two notes, the call and the answer, "Love?" "Here." "Love?" "Here," and long intervals of silence between. Plain as if written on a page was the thing they told. "That is what my Ramona is like," thought he, "the gentle wood-dove.
From forest depth and mountain side came the myriad voices of Nature's chorus, blending softly in the evening hymn; and, rising clear above the low breathed tones, yet in perfect harmony, came a whip-poor-will's plaintive call floating up from the darkness below; the sweet cooing of a wood-dove in a tree on the ridge, and the chirping of a cricket in a nearby crevice of the ledge.
"It is by that name I have oftenest thought of you since the night I watched all night for you, after you had kissed me, and two wood-doves were calling and answering each other in the dark; and I said to myself, that is what my love is like, the wood-dove: the wood-dove's voice is low like hers, and sweeter than any other sound in the earth; and the wood-dove is true to one mate always " He stopped.
It was but wave and sky and the familiar fowl of the lake, as coot, and mallard, and heron, and now and then a swift wood-dove going her ways from shore to shore; two gerfalcons she saw also, an osprey, and a great ern on his errand high up aloft.
And nestling to him she laughed quietly, with a note as tender and sweet as the cooing of a wood-dove to its mate. "Nay, but there is a mistake." He recovered the power of speech tardily, and would have put her from him; but she held tight to him. "I am not thy husband, nor yet a Rajput.
The notes of the wood-dove and oriole mingling with the silvery voice of the river, fell in rhythmical cadences upon the ears of the inhabitants who rested in the shady seclusion of their patios and gardens during the hour of the siesta; rolling and smoking cigarillos as they leisurely discussed the latest bit of news or gossip over their black coffee, mescal and tequila, or engaged in a game of moles.
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