I
wish we could go by the shore, Majella. It is beautiful there. When
it is still, the waves come as gently to the land as if they were in
play; and you can ride along with your horse's feet in the water,
and the green cliffs almost over your head; and the air off the
water is like wine in one's head."
"Cannot we go there?" she said longingly. "Would it not be safe?"
"I dare not," he answered regretfully. "Not now, Majella; for on the
shore-way, at all times, there are people going and coming."
"Some other time, Alessandro, we can come, after we are married,
and there is no danger?" she asked.
"Yes, Majella," he replied; but as he spoke the words, he thought,
"Will a time ever come when there will be no danger?"
The shore of the Pacific Ocean for many miles north of San Diego
is a succession of rounding promontories, walling the mouths of
canons, down many of which small streams make to the sea. These
canons are green and rich at bottom, and filled with trees, chiefly
oak. Beginning as little more than rifts in the ground, they deepen
and widen, till at their mouths they have a beautiful crescent of
shining beach from an eighth to a quarter of a mile long, The one
which Alessandro hoped to reach before morning was not a dozen
miles from the old town of San Diego, and commanded a fine
view of the outer harbor.
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