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And a something in the lad's looks touched a heart not yet grown gray.
^ ' Fie. fie ! a face like that, ' ' he laughed, " is a sin against the day,
When the poppies smile among the wheat and the good saints smile above ;
Fitter than frowns or tears it is to praise God and to love."
Kindly the stern face 'neath the hood, tho the blood with prayer was pale.
Joseph unlocked his misery and told the friar his tale.
^ ' It is ill to brood on a broken hope, ' ' the old man sighed at the end ;
** But you are young, and she is young, and young hearts are quick to mend.
The Signor Louis has orange-groves and honest labor for you ;
There is no time for idle dreaming in a world with so much to do.
The fortunes of man are as fickle as the every breeze that blows.
Trust God and have done with whining; it may all come well — who knows?"
Day by day in the orange-groves the lover bent at his toil,
Gath 'ring the fragrant bounty, robbing the boughs of their spoil.
Ever her face was before him, with the glory of love in her eyes ;
Ever he longed for her presence as a lost soul for Paradise ;
But the shame of his poverty mocked him — a bitter and burning shame
That festered and fretted his sore heart with the stab of a hateful name —
And the seasons passed uncounted, 'neath the scorch of its fetid flame.
Then, at length, Joseph paused and pondered, on a day in another Spring —
''I have earned broad fields and vineyards, yet I long for a better thing.
Ranches and groves and herds I have, and a lack in the heart o' me.
I have gone long hungry and thirsty for the touch of your lips, Marie;
I will go to your father and claim you, proudly and openly."
The grim old grandee listened as the miracle was told —
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