It seemed nothing short of a miracle how quickly the child recuperated. At the end of six weeks she had so far recovered that her mother, who had come to visit her, thought to take her home, but Mother Evans recommended a stay of sometime longer, so it ended in a visit of twelve happy, joyful weeks. The kind Nuns became very much attached to Amy, and she to them, and dear Mother Evans began her preparation for First Holy Communion. August was nearing its end when Mrs. Allen paid another visit to Atlantic City, this time, to bring her little girl home. She took board in a cottage near the convent, wishing to enjoy a few days of sea air. One day when seated on the beach, both mother and daughter silently watched the waves as they came in gentle ripples almost to their feet. Amy awoke from her reverie, exclaiming: "Oh, it is so beautiful!" She had been reading of the early explorers of our country, the self-sacrificing missionaries who crossed this same boundless ocean, which now lay so calm before them. Amy went on musingly, as if talking to herself, such a softness had come into her voice--her eyes took a dreamy far-off look, as though it were fresh in her mind--the story of the gallant De Soto and his brave company of six hundred men, the flower of Spanish chivalry, leaving the sunny slopes of his native Estramadura, sailing across these unknown seas, and landing upon these western shores; day after day pressing on through pathless wilds, on towards the sunset, in pursuit of that fabled El Dorado in which they thoroughly believed. And then that sad death upon the banks of the river which his eyes first of all Europeans had beheld--the sorrowing band who resolved to hide his body in the waters--the little skiff, in the gloom of the soft summer night, pushing silently out from the shadowy shore, with oars muffled and voices hushed, for fear of the savage arrows hidden among the dark vines--the dull sound as they dropped the body in mid-river, and the sweet, sad music as the priest sang low the requiem of the departed chief--the first requiem that had ever sounded upon those solitary shores, where the waves have for four hundred years chanted their long dirge over the man whose prowess first gave them to the world. There was, too, the grand old Ponce de Leon, who saw one Easter morning, a land rise out of the Western Sea--a land lovely in all its luxuriant vegetation of a Southern spring, with breath and beauty of flowers. What better name could the romantic hidalgo devise than "Florida," and where more fitly than here could he search for that wonderous fountain of perpetual youth? Ah, brave old Spanish Cavalier. Did no soft wind wafted gently from afar over the flowery sunset land, whisper to you that, instead of youth and life perennial you should find, under the magnolia shade--a grave?