Robert in Hong Kong?" "Oh, Dom Pedro, you came out so suddenly I thought I was attacked. No news, unless it is that the rector of St. John's is to join me to the loveliest girl in Macao or the world, in just three weeks." "I hope you won't disappoint him Dom Robert, you came very near doing so to-night," said Pedro de Amaral with a laugh. "How, pray?" asked Adams as they entered the now unbarred gate. "You were within three feet of the water, if you had fallen in, that would have disappointed him. Not? Three feet is near. Not?" "Yes, and the boiler might have burst," replied Adams laughing. "Or more improbable yet the Portuguese government might have revived Macao, which would kill me with astonishment my dear Amaral."

Having entered the house he was followed by Dom Pedro, who bent upon him such a look of hatred as only the eyes of Latin races can give. The Portuguese turned to the right to his own apartments and Adams following a servant to the left, was soon in the dimly lighted library of Dom Luiz de Amaral the father of Dom Pedro. There were not many books on the shelves but a superb collection of Oriental swords and knives was arranged in the cases from which the shelves had been taken. Two old engravings, one of the poet Camoens and the other of Catarina de Atayde, his beloved, who died of grief at his banishment, hung on the wall; the rest of the furnishings was of that cosmopolitan character which is sure to collect in the home of a European resident in the far East.

"Can't you see me Robert?" said a laughing voice of great sweetness from a corner of the study. "One would think that both your eyes had met the same fate that the right one of poor Camoens did in Morocco." "My darling Priscilla how could I see you ten feet away from the light? You know olive oil don't give the brightest illumination. But its enough though." "Don't!" "Just one," and then a sound not unknown to many of us put a stop to the conversation. "Shall I leave the room children?" came in merry tones from another corner and immediately an old lady came forward giving both hands to him. "That miserable oil of Dom Amaral's has put me into a pretty mess," said Adams half annoyed, but laughing as he greeted the lady. "Don't berate me before my face dear friend about my light, especially when you are so soon to take our brightest light away from us." "Fairly trapped, Dom Amaral," cried Adams laughing heartily at this third interruption. "And here is Dom Pedro dressed for dinner," he continued as the younger Amaral entered the room. "I'll be with you presently and have my eyes toned down to your Macao standard."

Being so constant a visitor, Robert Adams had his own rooms at Dom Amaral's, where he found his bags unpacked and the clothes laid out by those deftest of servants, the Chinese. According to custom the dinner of Macao was served at the late hour of nine.

Dom Luiz Diego de Amaral was one of the wealthiest Portuguese in the city, having, unlike most of his fellow citizens, investments abroad which brought him a considerable income after the birth of Hong Kong killed Macao and left it a city of the past, of poverty and pride. Having in his youth married a Spanish woman who bore him one son, Pedro, he was left a widower before the age of twenty-five.

Some years after, being in Boston where he then had large shipping interests, he took a second wife, Priscilla Harvey, and returned to Macao. Madam de Amaral's only sister, wife of Captain Fernald had one child which was left an orphan at an early age by the drowning of both parents in Portsmouth harbour.

This orphan, Priscilla Fernald, was taken to her aunt in China and became a member of the household of Dom Amaral. It was a strange transplanting for such a flower from the cold coast of Puritan New England to the tropical, Roman Catholic colony in the heart of heathendom. But the flower of so sturdy a stock remained true. It was long accepted by all, even by the maiden Priscilla, that young Amaral was to be her husband though nothing had been said on the subject. Later, the small circle of Macao society, of which poverty and pride were the ruling features, became too dull for the young girl and her foster parents took her often to Hong Kong where she met with those of the outer world.

In that hospitable society of the "city of the fragrant streams," where the dinner table seems to be the only rendezvous, save a garden party now and then, a Tarrantella dance or a Government House ball, the fair Priscilla met young Robert Adams, a native of her far away and almost unknown home. The acquaintance blossomed into friendship and ripened into love. The lover was accepted, and now a courtship of two years was in three weeks to see them married. There were many disappointed youths and envious of Robert Adams, but all took their misfortune as in the way of the world, except young Amaral, who, in silence, had watched the course of events and now hated the happy suitor with all the fierceness of his Southern blood.

That night Robert Adams, unlike the conventional lover, but like a healthy, light-hearted fellow, fell asleep without a sigh, listening to the waves as they broke regularly on the stone embankment before his window. In the room below, Dom Pedro walked until the early morning, no beating of waves could lull him to sleep, for his head ached and his eyes burned in the fever of jealousy. Thus he brooded over his loss till the sun gilded the hermitage fort of Our Lady of Guia.

II.

The following day was Sunday, the liveliest, or rather the only day with any life at all, in Macao, for the visitors from Hong Kong then go about the city sight seeing to be ready for the early return of the steamboat on Monday morning.

A pleasant spot, and one not often molested by visitors on account of the somewhat toilsome climb required to reach it, is the church of Our Lady of Pehna on the summit of Mt. Nillau. Built in 1622 on this high point to be more easily protected from any possible invasion of the Chinese from the main island of Heang Shang, the church serves now only as an addition to the picturesqueness of Macao, and though repaired in 1837 is again in ruin. Priscilla and her affianced chose this for their Sabbath walk, for it is only through nature that the Protestants in Macao can worship nature's God, and surely the incense of flowers could bear to Him on high the thanksgiving of those two happy hearts, as truly as the frankincense and myrrh which the good Fathers of the last century burnt upon Mt. Nillau. The narrow but well paved streets with their stuccoed houses, barred windows and little peep-holes at the doors, for questioning the doubtful applicants for admission, even the two months old posters of Chiarini's circus had a new charm this Sunday morning; for Adams it was a day of quiet after his week of noise and bustle in Hong Kong, while for Priscilla it seemed a gala day full of life after the six silent days of sleepy monotony. "I can see that Pedro is not friendly toward you Robert," she said; "I could hear him walking during all the night and am sure he is planning something to annoy you, I know his ways so well." "Don't worry, Priscilla, Dom Pedro was probably troubled over some loss at the fan-tan table; they say he won five hundred Mexicans last week and then lost that sum doubled."

"That may be so, Robert, but our approaching marriage is a great cross to him. It is hard to tell what Pedro's thoughts are; his eyes are like our Macao windows of isinglass and let very little light either way."

The winding road between ruined walls of gray stone, half covered with clinging ficus, spanned by broken arches, with here and there a fallen urn,