Fernando still sat gazing into the fire and
saying to himself:
"Oh, if it could have been, if it could have been!"
A young woman does a rash thing when she rejects such a warm, manly
heart as that of Fernando Stevens. Not all men are capable of such
unselfish devotion as his, and Morgianna little dreamed how much she was
casting aside.
He was still gazing into the smouldering fire, when Terrence, who had
won all the money from the soldier with whom he was playing cards, came
to him and said:
"Captain, are ye goin' to spend the night gazing into the fire?"
"No, Terrence; I am not sleepy; but I will lie down."
"Captain, do ye remember the little girl at Mariana five years ago, the
one yersilf and the Englishman were about to break heads over?"
"You mean Morgianna Lane, Terrence?"
"To be sure I do. I saw the swate craythur not two months since."
Fernando, who was anything but sleepy, asked:
"Where did you see her, Terrence?"
"In Baltimore. She is prettier than whin you used to stroll over the
beach in the moonlight with her."
"Is she married?"
"Divil a bit. I talked with her, and, d'ye belave me, almost the first
question she asked me was about yersilf. Aye, Fernando, it was a grand
story I told her about ye making a hero of yersilf. I told her how ye
defeated Tecumseh and killed the thief with yer own hand, and how ye
conquered at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane.
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