"Eva!" he cried, "Eva, have courage; I am coming, I am near you!" So near that she could see where the arrow had struck his side, and the blue coat was fast growing purple from the blood that followed where the arrow in its flight had made that ugly gash. So near that she could realize how desperate was the struggle between him and the half-naked, light-footed horde that disputed every step to Eva's side, literally at the point of the lance. But the soldiers were not far behind; and with the strength that comes only of love or despair, the young man reached Eva's side at last. She had not fainted--much as my lady readers may upbraid her for this omission of the proprieties--but held up her poor, fettered hands to him with a look for which he would have laid down his life a thousand times over. "You are free!" he cried, loosening her fetters with trembling hands; "you are free! And if I have broken my promise--if I have come to you again--I have come only to die at your feet." _THE GOLDEN LAMB._ "Oh, dear! this is one of her tantrums again!" "Well, she _is_ the funniest girl I ever _did_ see." "And it is only because I laughed at the way the forlorn old maid, whom she calls her dressmaker, had hunched that lovely lavender till it looks like a fright." "See how she's jerking it, to make it fit." "Hush, girls," broke in the mother; "that is not the way to improve her disposition. Don't be watching her; look out here at the window; see the number of sails coming in through the Golden Gate this morning." The view from the bay-window in the second story front, which was used as a sitting-room for the ladies of the family, was certainly very grand this bright December morning, when the sun, shining from an unclouded sky, kissed the waters of the bay till they looked as clear as the heavens above, with millions of little golden stars rippling and flashing on the blue surface. But far more attractive to the two young ladies, who pretended to be counting the vessels in sight, was the view in the back-ground of the room, where a slender, _petite_ figure, with head half-defiantly thrown back, was noting in the tall pier-glass the effects of the changes her quick fingers made in the lavender robe, whose silken folds were sweeping the carpet. The head was crowned with a glory of the brightest, lightest golden hair, while the eyes, flashing proudly from under the long silken lashes, were darker than midnight. Yet the sparkle and the laughter of the noonday sun were in them, when the cloud, just now resting on the child-like brow, was dispelled by a kind word or a sympathetic touch. "There, Lola--it is perfect now," said Mrs. Wheaton, turning to her youngest daughter, and thus breaking the seal laid on the lips of her two older ones. Matilda, good-hearted, and really loving her sister, in spite of her greater beauty and her "strange ways," meant to improve the opportunity.