The Birth of Catalina [pp. 420]

OVERLAND MONTHLY
the solution had been lost, and bitterly
blamed herself for not having a photographic copy made before letting it go
out of her hands.
Your curiosity is simply devouring
you," said her father one day. "Let me
open it for you."
"That would be a sneak," she replied.
"I either believe that the contents of that
vial will harm me, or I don't. If I believe it, I confess I am superstitious; if
I don't, there will be no harm in opening
it myself."
But in her quiet moments, she confessed to herself that her father was
right,- that her curiosity was devouring
her. She sometimes got so far as to secure a corkscrew or a hat pin and begin
picking at the wax. But something always restrained her. The crest had, in
this way, been gradually all picked off,
during several weeks, a little at a time,
and she was about down to the glass
stopper. The suspense became too great
and one afternoon she wrenched the
stopper out.
Her maid, in another part of tlhe
house, wondered what possessed her
mistress, usually so gentle, to ring so fu
riously, and why, when she ran to her
room she should find it locked. She
rapped and listened. She thought she
heard a moan, and aroused the house
But the oak door-frameswere strong,and
when they at length broke in they found
her lifeless across a divan, the vial
clenched in her hand, but no other sign
of suffering upon her. The maid noticed a spot of sunshine upon the ceiling
which gave out for a few moments an
unusual, opalescent sheen, and then
gradually vanished.
To the house of mourning there came
a little later a letter which her father
opened, and of which the following is a
part:
Berlin, Oct. 20th.
My Dear Miss Harrington:
I must apologize for the delay in
answering your letter, which came while I
was in Switzerland. You have indeed done
well, I suspect, in restraining your curiosity;
for oddly enough you seem to have stumbled
upon a relic of Catherine de Medici, or a
clever imposition, as the following translation seems to indicate:
Florence, June 20, I570.
Note: Prepared today, by order of her
Majesty, a deadly vapor. Concealed it in this
secret cabinet, with a note of warning.
Rene.
THE BIRTH OF CATALINA.
~, OD looked upon his favored land one day,
\Vithl all its gold of sunshine and of flowers,
Where ceaseless summer thrills the dreamfutl hours.
A perfect thought fulfilled before Him lay.
Yet twixt the shore where waves kiss golden sand
And the mist curtains of the purpling morn,
He marked the sea, a shimmering, turquoise band,
A jewel lacked. Then at His wish was born
The fair isle Catalina, rarest gem
That gleameth in the \Vestland's diadem.
Leazvenwor/th zJacnab.
420