In Macao | Page 3

the Chinese. According to custom the dinner
of Macao was served at the late hour of nine.
Dom Luiz Diego de Amaral was one of the wealthiest Portuguese in the
city, having, unlike most of his fellow citizens, investments abroad
which brought him a considerable income after the birth of Hong Kong
killed Macao and left it a city of the past, of poverty and pride. Having
in his youth married a Spanish woman who bore him one son, Pedro,
he was left a widower before the age of twenty-five.
Some years after, being in Boston where he then had large shipping
interests, he took a second wife, Priscilla Harvey, and returned to
Macao. Madam de Amaral's only sister, wife of Captain Fernald had
one child which was left an orphan at an early age by the drowning of
both parents in Portsmouth harbour.
This orphan, Priscilla Fernald, was taken to her aunt in China and
became a member of the household of Dom Amaral. It was a strange
transplanting for such a flower from the cold coast of Puritan New
England to the tropical, Roman Catholic colony in the heart of
heathendom. But the flower of so sturdy a stock remained true. It was
long accepted by all, even by the maiden Priscilla, that young Amaral
was to be her husband though nothing had been said on the subject.
Later, the small circle of Macao society, of which poverty and pride
were the ruling features, became too dull for the young girl and her
foster parents took her often to Hong Kong where she met with those of

the outer world.
In that hospitable society of the "city of the fragrant streams," where
the dinner table seems to be the only rendezvous, save a garden party
now and then, a Tarrantella dance or a Government House ball, the fair
Priscilla met young Robert Adams, a native of her far away and almost
unknown home. The acquaintance blossomed into friendship and
ripened into love. The lover was accepted, and now a courtship of two
years was in three weeks to see them married. There were many
disappointed youths and envious of Robert Adams, but all took their
misfortune as in the way of the world, except young Amaral, who, in
silence, had watched the course of events and now hated the happy
suitor with all the fierceness of his Southern blood.
That night Robert Adams, unlike the conventional lover, but like a
healthy, light-hearted fellow, fell asleep without a sigh, listening to the
waves as they broke regularly on the stone embankment before his
window. In the room below, Dom Pedro walked until the early morning,
no beating of waves could lull him to sleep, for his head ached and his
eyes burned in the fever of jealousy. Thus he brooded over his loss till
the sun gilded the hermitage fort of Our Lady of Guia.
II.
The following day was Sunday, the liveliest, or rather the only day with
any life at all, in Macao, for the visitors from Hong Kong then go about
the city sight seeing to be ready for the early return of the steamboat on
Monday morning.
A pleasant spot, and one not often molested by visitors on account of
the somewhat toilsome climb required to reach it, is the church of Our
Lady of Pehna on the summit of Mt. Nillau. Built in 1622 on this high
point to be more easily protected from any possible invasion of the
Chinese from the main island of Heang Shang, the church serves now
only as an addition to the picturesqueness of Macao, and though
repaired in 1837 is again in ruin. Priscilla and her affianced chose this
for their Sabbath walk, for it is only through nature that the Protestants
in Macao can worship nature's God, and surely the incense of flowers

could bear to Him on high the thanksgiving of those two happy hearts,
as truly as the frankincense and myrrh which the good Fathers of the
last century burnt upon Mt. Nillau. The narrow but well paved streets
with their stuccoed houses, barred windows and little peep-holes at the
doors, for questioning the doubtful applicants for admission, even the
two months old posters of Chiarini's circus had a new charm this
Sunday morning; for Adams it was a day of quiet after his week of
noise and bustle in Hong Kong, while for Priscilla it seemed a gala day
full of life after the six silent days of sleepy monotony. "I can see that
Pedro is not friendly toward you Robert," she said; "I could hear him
walking during all the night and am sure he is planning something to
annoy you, I know his ways so well." "Don't worry, Priscilla, Dom
Pedro was probably troubled