MARIQUITA
MARIQUITA
A Novel
BY
JOHN AYSCOUGH
BENZIGER BROTHERS
NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO
BENZIGER BROTHERS
PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER' s MAGAZINE
1922
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY BKNZIGER BROTHERS
TO
SENORITA MARIQUITA GUTIERREZ
SENORITA,
It is, indeed, kind of you to condone, by
your acceptance of the dedication of this small
book, the theft of your name, perpetrated
without your knowledge, in its title. And in
thanking you for that acceptance I seize
another opportunity of apologizing for that
theft.
I need not tell you that in drawing
Mariquita's portrait I have not been guilty of
the further liberty of attempting your own,
since we have never met, except on paper, and
you belong to that numerous party of my
friends known to me only by welcome and
kind letters. But I hope there may be a
nearer likelihood of my meeting you than
there now can be of my seeing your namesake.
That you and some others may like her I
earnestly trust: if not it must be the fault of
my portrait, drawn perhaps with less skill than
respectful affection.
JOHN AYSCOUGH.
MARIQUITA
CHAPTER I.
A WHOLE state, as big as England
and Wales, and then half as big
again, tilting smoothly upward to-
wards, but never reaching, the Great Di-
vide: the tilt so gradual that miles of land
seem level; a vast sun-swept, breeze-swept
upland always high above the level of the
far, far-off sea, here in the western skirts
of the state a mile above it. Its sky-scape
always equal to its landscape, and dominant
as the sky can never be imagined in shut
lands of close valleys, where trees are for-
ever at war with the air and with the light.
Here light and life seeming twin and in-
separable: and the wind itself but the
breathing of the light. What is called, by
the foolish, a featureless country, that is
with huge, fine features, not to be sought
for but insistent, regnant, everywhere:
space, tangible and palpable, height in-
MARIQUITA
evitably perceptible and recognizable in all
the unviolated light, in the winds' smash,
and the sum's, in the dancing sense of free-
dom: yet that dancing not frivolous, but
gladly solemn.
As to little features they are slurred (to
the slight glance) in the vast unity: but look
for them, and they are myriad. The river-
banks hold them, between prairie-lip and
water. The prairie-waves hold them. Life
is innumerably present, though to the hasty
sight it seems primarily and distinctly ab-
sent. There are myriads of God's little live
preachers, doing each, from untold ages to
untold ages, the unnoted things set them by
Him to do, as their big brothers the sun and
the wind, the rain and the soil do.
Of the greater beasts fewer but plenty
fox, and timber-wolf, and coyote, and still
to-day an antelope here and there.
Of men few. Their dwellings parted by
wide distances. Their voices scarce heard
where no dwelling is at hand. But the
dwellings, being solitary and rare, singu-
larly home-stamped.
8
CHAPTER IL
MARIQUITA came out from the
homestead, where there was no-
body, and stood at its verge (where
the prairie began abruptly) where there was
nobody. She was twenty years old and had
lived five of them here on the prairie, since
her mother died, and she had come home to
be her father's daughter and housekeeper,
and all the servant he had. She was hardly
taller now, and more slim. Her father did
not know she was beautiful at first he had
been too much engaged in remembering her
mother, who had been very blonde and fair,
not at all like her. Her own skin was dark ;
and her rich hair was dark; her grave, soft,
deep eyes were dark, though hazel-dark,
not black-dark: whereas her mother's hair
had been sunny-golden, and her eyes bright
(rather shallow) blue, and her skin all
white and rose.
Her mother had taught school, up in
MARIQUITA
Cheyenne, in Wyoming, and had been of a
New England family of Puritans. Her
father's people had come, long ago, from
Spain, and he himself had been born near
the desert in New Mexico : his mother may
have been Indian but a Catholic, anyway.
So, no doubt, was Jose: though he had
little occasion to remember it. It was over
fifty miles to the nearest church and he had
not heard Mass for years. He had married
his Protestant wife without any dispensa-
tion, and a judge had married them.
Nevertheless when the child came, he
had made the mother understand she must
be of his Church, and had baptized her
himself. When Mariquita was ten years
old he sent her to the Loretto nuns, out on
the heights beyond Denver, where she had
been confirmed, and made her first Com-
munion, and many subsequent Communions.
For five years now she had had to "hear
Mass her own way." That is to say, she
went out upon the prairie, and, in the shade
of a tree-clump, took her lonely place,
crossed herself at the threshold of the
shadow, and genuflected towards where she
10
MARIQUITA
believed her old school was, with its chapel,
and its Tabernacle. Then, out of her book
she followed the Ordinary of the Mass, pro-
jecting herself in mind and fancy into that
worshipping company, picturing priest and
nuns and school-fellows. At the Sanctus
she rang a sheep-bell, and deepened all her
Intention. At the Elevation she rang it
again, in double triplet, though she could
elevate only her own solitary soul. At first
she had easily pictured all her school-fel-
lows in their remembered places they were
all grown up and gone away home now.
The old priest she had known was dead, as
the nuns had sent her word, and she had to
picture a priest, unknown, featureless, in-
stead of him. The nuns' faces had somewhat
dimmed in distinctness too. But she could
picture the large group still. At the Com-
munion she always made a Spiritual Com-
munion of her own that was why she
always "heard her Mass" early, so as to be
fasting.
Once or twice, at long intervals, she had
been followed by one of the cowboys: but
the first one had seen her face as she knelt,
ii
MARIQUITA
and gone away, noiselessly, with a shy, red
reverence. Her father had seen the second
making obliquely towards her tree-clump,
had overtaken him and inquired grimly if
he would like a leathering. "When Mari-
quita's at church," said Jose, "let her be.
She's for none of us then."
And they let her be: and her tree-clump
became known as Mariquita's Church by
all the cowboys.
One by one they fell in love with her (her
father grimly conscious, but unremarking)
and one by one they found nothing come of
it. Whether he would have objected had
anything come of it he did not say, though
several had tried to guess.
To her he never spoke of it, any more
than to them: he hardly spoke to her of
anything except the work which she did
carefully, as if carelessly. If she had neg-
lected it, or done it badly, he would have
rebuked her: that, he considered, was par-
ental duty: as she needed no rebuke he said
nothing; his ideas of paternal duty were
bounded by paternal correction and a cer-
tain cool watchfulness. His watchfulness
12
MARIQUITA
was not intrusive: he left her chiefly to her-
self, perceiving her to require no guidance.
In all her life he never had occasion to
complain that anything she did was "out of
place" his notion of the severest expression
of disapproval a father could be called upon
to utter.
It was, in his opinion, to be taken for
granted that a parent was entitled to the
affection of his child, and that the child was
entitled to the affection of her father. He
neither displayed his affection nor wished
Mariquita to display hers. Nor was there
in him any sensible feeling of love for the
girl. Her mother he had loved, and it was
a relief to him that his daughter was wholly
unlike her. It would have vexed him had
there been any challenging likeness would
have resented it as a tacit claim, like a
rivalry.
Joaquin was lonelier than Mariquita. He
did not like being called "Don Joaquin";
he preferred being known by his surname,
as "Mr. Xeres." One of the cowboys, a very
ignorant lad from the East, had supposed
"Wah-Keen" to be a Chinese name, and
13
MARIQUITA
confided his idea to the others. Don Joaquin
had overheard their laughter and been
enraged by its cause when he had learned it.
He had not married till he was a little
over thirty, being already well off by then,
and he was therefore now past fifty on this
afternoon when Mariquita came out and
stood all alone where the homestead as it
were rejoined the prairie. At first her long
gaze, used to the great distances, was turned
westward (and smith a little) towards
where, miles upon miles out of sight, lay the
Mile High City, and Loretto, and the Con-
vent, and all that made her one stock of
memories.
The prairie was as empty to such a gaze
as so much ocean.
But the sun-stare dazzled her, and she
turned eastward ; half a mile from her, that
way, lay the river, showing nothing at this
distance: its water, not filling at this season
a fifth of the space between banks was out
of sight: the low scrub within its banks was
out of sight. Even its lips, of precisely even
level on either side, were not discernible.
But where she knew the further lip was,
H
MARIQUITA
she saw two riders, a man and a woman. A
moment after she caught sight of them they
disappeared had ridden down into the
river-bed. The trail had guided them, and
they could miss neither the way nor the ford.
Nevertheless she walked towards where
they were though her father might pos-
sibly have thought her doing so out of place.
CHAPTER III.
UP over the sandy river-bed came the
two strangers, and Mariquita stood
awaiting them.
The woman might be thirty, and was, she
perceived (to whom a saddle was easier
than a chair) unused to riding. She was a
pretty woman, with a sort of foolish amia-
bility of manner that might mean nothing.
The man was younger perhaps by three
years, and rode as if he had always known
how to do it, but without being saddle-bred,
without living chiefly on horseback.
His companion was much aware of his
being handsome, but Mariquita did not
think of that. She, however, liked him im-
mediately much better than she liked the
lady. The lady was not, in fact, quite a
lady; but the young man was a gentleman;
and perhaps Mariquita had never known
one.
"Is this," inquired the blonde lady
pointing, though inaccurately, as if to indi-
16
MARIQUITA
cate Marquita's home, "where Mr. Xeres
lives, please?"
She pronounced the X like the x's in
Artaxerxes.
"Certainly. He is my father."
"Then your mother is my Aunt Mar-
garet," said the lady in the smart clothes
that looked so queer on an equestrian.
"My mother unfortunately is dead,"
Mariquita informed her, with a simplicity
that made the wide-open blue eyes open
wider still, and caused their owner to decide
that the girl was "awfully Spanish."
Miss Sarah Jackson assumed (with ad-
mirable readiness) an expression of pathos.
"How very sad! I do apologize," she
murmured, as if the decease of her aunt
were partly her fault.
The young man was amused not for the
first time by his fellow-traveller: but he
did not show it.
"You couldn't help it," said Mariquita.
("How very Spanish!" thought her
cousin.)
"Of course you did not know," the girl
added, "or you would not have said any-
17
MARIQUITA
thing to hurt me. And my mother's death
happened five years ago."
"Not really!" cried the deceased lady's
niece. "How wholly unexpected!"
"It wasn't very sudden," Mariquita ex-
plained. "She was ill for three months."
"My father was quite unaware of it
entirely so. He died, in fact, just about that
time. And Aunt Margaret and he were (so
unfortunately!) 'hardly on terms. Person-
ally I always (though a child) had the
strongest affection for Aunt Margaret. I
took her part about her marriage. Papa's
own second marriage struck me as less
defensible."
"My father only married once," said
Mariquita; "he is a widower."
"Qh, quite so! I wish mine had remained
so. My stepmother tout we all have our
faults, no doubt. We did not live agreeably
after her third marriage " (Mariquita
was getting giddy, and so, perhaps, was Miss
Jackson's fellow-traveller.)
"I could not, in fact, live," that! lady
serenely continued, with a smile of lingering
sweetness, "and finally we differed com-
18
MARIQUITA
pletely. (Not noisily, on my part, nor
roughly but irrevocably.) Hence my re-
solve to turn to Aunt Margaret, and my
presence here blood is thicker than water,
when you come to think of it."
"I met Miss Jackson at ," her fel-
low-traveller explained, "and we made
acquaintance '
"Introduced by Mrs. Plosher," Miss
Jackson put in again with singular sweet-
ness. "Mrs. Plosher's boarding-house was
recommended to me by two ministers. Mr.
Gore was likewise her guest, and coming, as
she was aware, to your father's."
Don Joaquin, besides the regular cow-
boys, had from time to time taken a sort of
pupil or apprentice, who paid instead of
being paid. Mariquita had not been in-
formed that this Mr. Gore was expected.
"So," Mr. Gore added, "I begged Miss
Jackson to use one of my horses, and I have
been her escort."
"So coincidental!" observed that lady,
shaking her head slightly. "Though really
now I find my aunt no longer presiding
here I really "
19
CHAPTER IV.
DON JOAQIUIN expressed no sur-
prise at Mr. Gore's arrival, and no
rapture at that of Miss Jackson.
But he appeared to take it for granted both
would remain as they did.
He saw more of the young man than of
the young woman, which seemed to Mari-
quita to account for 5 his preferring the latter.
She had to see more of the lady. Miss Jack-
son was undeniably pretty, and instantly
recognized as such by the cowboys : but she
"kept her distance," and largely ignored
their presence a fact not unobserved by
Don Joaquin, who inwardly commended
her prudence. Of Mr. Gore she took more
notice, as was natural, owing to their pre-
vious acquaintance. She spoke of him, how-
ever, to her host, as a lad, and hinted that
at her age, lads were tedious ; while frequent
in allusion to a certain Eastern friend of
hers (Mr. Bluck, a man of large means and
20
MARIQUITA
great capacity) whose married daughter
was her closest acquaintance.
"Carolina was older than me at school,"
she would admit, "but she was more to my
taste than those of my own age. Maturity
wins me. Youth is so raw!"
"What you call underdone/' suggested
Don Joaquin, who had talked English for
forty years, and translated it still, in his
mind, into Spanish.
"Just that," Sara'h agreed. "You grasp
me."
He didn't then, though he would sooner
or later, thought the cowboys.
Miss Jackson, then, ignored the cowboys,
and gave all the time she could spare from
herself to Mariquita. When not with
Mariquita she was sewing, being an inde-
fatigable dressmaker. She called it her
"studies."
"It is essential (out here in the wilder-
ness) that I should not neglect my studies,
and run to seed," she would say, as she smil-
ingly retreated into her bedroom, where
there were no books.
Mariquita would not have been sorry had
21
MARIQUITA
she "studied" more. Sarah did not fit into
her old habits of life, and when they were
together Mariquita felt lonelier than she
had ever done before. Indoors she did not
find the young woman so incongruous but
when they were out on the prairie together
the elder girl seemed somehow altogether
impossible to reconcile with it.
"One might sketch," Miss Jackson would
observe. "One ought to keep up one's
sketching: I feel it to be a duty don't you?"
"No. I can't sketch. It can't be a duty
in my case."
"Ah, but in mine! I know I ought. But
there's no feature." And she slowly waved
her parasol round the horizon as though
defying a "feature" to supervene from any
point of the compass.
Though she despised her present neigh-
borhood, Sarah never hinted at any inten-
tion of leaving it: and it became apparent
that her host would not have liked her to go
away. That her presence was a great thing
for Mariquita it suited him to assume, but
he saw no necessity for discussing the mat-
ter, nor ascertaining what might in fact be
22
MARIQUITA
his daughter's opinion.
"I think," he said instead, "it will be
better we call your cousin 'Sarella'. It is
her name Sarah and Ella. 'Sarella' sounds
more fitting."
So he and Mariquita thenceforth called
her "Sarella."
CHAPTER V.
DON JOAQUIN never thought much
of Robert Gore; he failed, from the
first, to "take to him." It had not
delighted him that "Sarella" should arrive
under his escort, though how she could
have made her way up from Maxwell with-
out him, he did not trouble to discuss with
himself. At first he had thought it almost
inevitable that the young man should make
those services of his a claim to special in-
timacy with the lady to whom he had acci-
dentally been useful. As it became apparent
that Gore made no such claim, and was not
peculiarly inclined to intimacy with his late
fellow-traveller, Don Joaquin was half
disposed to take umbrage, as though the
young man were in a manner slighting Miss
Jackson his own wife's niece.
As there were only two women about the
place, indifference to one of them (and that
one, in Don Joaquin's opinion, by far the
24
MARIQUITA
more attractive) might be accounted for by
some special inclination towards the other.
Was Gore equally indifferent to Mariquita?
Now, at present, Mariquita's father was
not ready to approve any advances from the
stranger in that direction. He did not feel
he knew enough about him. That he was
sufficiently well off, he thought probable;
but in that matter he must have certainty.
And besides, he thought Gore was sure to
be a Protestant. Now he had married a
Protestant himself: and that his wife had
been taken from him in her youth had been,
he had silently decided, Heaven's retribu-
tion. Besides, a girl was different. A man
might do things she might not. He had con-
sulted his own will and pleasure only; but
Mariquita was not therefore free to consult
hers. A Catholic girl should give herself
only to a Catholic man.
That Mariquita and Gore saw little of
each other he was pretty sure, but it was
not possible they should see nothing. And
it soon became his opinion that, without
much personal intercourse, they were inter-
ested in each other.
25
MARIQUITA
Mariquita listened (without often look-
ing at him) when Gore talked, in a manner
he had never yet observed in her. Gore's
extreme deference towards the girl, his sin-
gular and almost aloof courtesy was, the old
man conceived, not only breeding and good
manners, but the sign of some special way in
which she had impressed him; as if he had,
at sight, perceived in her something unre-
vealed to her father himself. In this, as in
most things, Don Joaquin was correct in his
surmise. He was shrewd in surmise to the
point almost of cleverness, though by no
means an infallible judge of character. It
did not, however, occur to him that the
young stranger was right in this fancied per-
ception, that in Mariquita there was some-
thing higher and finer than anything divined
by her father, who had never gone beyond
admitting that, so far, he had perceived in
her nothing out of place.
If anything out of place should now
appear he would speak; meanwhile he
remained, as his habit was, silent and
watchful; not rendered more appreciative
of his daughter by the stranger's apprecia-
26
MARIQUITA
tion, and not inclined by that appreciation
more favorably to the stranger himself.
That Gore was not warmly welcomed by
the cowboys neither surprised nor troubled
him. There were no quarrels, and that was
enough. He did not expect them to be
delighted by the advent of a foreigner in a
position not identical with their own. What
they did for pay, he paid for being taught
to do that was the theory, though in fact
Gore did not seem to need much teaching.
Some, of course, he did need: prairie-lore
he could not know, however practised he
might be as a mere horseman. Don Joaquin
was chiefly a horse-raiser and dealer, though
he dealt also in cattle and even in sheep. By
this time he had the repute of being
wealthy.
27
CHAPTER VI.
IT was true that the actual intercourse
between Mariquita and her father's
apprentice or pupil was much less fre-
quent or close than might be imagined by
anyone strange to the way of life of which
they formed two units.
At meals they sat at the same table, but
during the greater part of every day he was
out upon the range, and she at home, within
the homestead, or near it. Yet it was also
true that between them there was something
not existing between either and any other
person: a friendship mostly silent, an in-
terest not the less real or strong because of
the silence. To Gore she was a study, of
profounder interest than any book he knew.
To make a counter-study of him would have
been alien from Mariquita's nature and
character; but his presence, which she did
not ponder, or consider, as he did hers,
brought something into her life. Perhaps it
28
MARIQUITA
chiefly made her less lonely by revealing to
her how lonely she had been. Of his beauty
she never thought never till the end. Of
hers he thought much less as he became
more and more absorbed in herself though
its fineness was always more and more
clearly perceived by him.
On that first afternoon, when he had first
seen her, it had instantly struck him as
possessing a quality of rarity, elusive and
never to be defined. Miss Jackson's almost
gorgeous prettiness, her brilliant coloring,
her attractive shapeliness, had been hope-
lessly and finally vulgarized by the contrast
as the two young women stood on the
level lip of the river-course in the unspar-
ing, unflattering light.
That Miss Jackson promptly decided that
Mariquita was stupid, he had seen plainly;
and he had not had the consolation of know-
ing that she was; stupid herself. She was, he
knew, wise enough in her generation, and by
no means vacant of will or purpose. But
she was, he saw, stupid in thinking her
young hostess so. Slow, in some senses,
Mariquita might be; not swift of impres-
29
MARIQUITA
sion, though tenacious of impression re-
ceived, nor willing to be quick in jumping
to shrewd (unflattering) conclusion, yet
likely to stick hard to an even harsh conclu-
sion once formed.
These, however, were slight matters.
What was not slight was the sense she gave
him of nobility: her simplicity itself noble,
her complete acquiescence in her own com-
plete ignorance of experience her innate,
unargued conviction of the little conse-
quence of much, often highly desired, ex-
perience.
Of the world she knew nothing, socially,
geographically even. Of women her knowl-
edge was (as soon he discovered) a mere
memory, a memory of a group of nuns for
her other companions at the Convent had
been children. Of men she knew only her
father and his cowboys. And no one, he
perceived, knew her.
But Gore did not believe her mind vacant.
That rare quality could not have been in
her beauty if it had been empty. Yet
there was something greater than her mind
behind her face. The shape of that per-
30
MARIQUITA
ception had entered instantly into his own
mind; and the perception grew and deep-
ened daily, with every time he was in her
presence, with every recollection of her in
absence.
Her mind might be a garden unsown.
But behind her face was the light of a lamp
not waiting to be lit, but already lighted (he
surmised) at the first coming of conscious
existence, and burning steadily ever since.
Whose hand had lighted it he did not know
yet, though he knew that the lamp, shining
behind her face, her mere beauty, was her
soul. Her father was not mistaken in his
notion that the young man regarded the girl
to whom he addressed so little of direct
speech, with a veneration that disconcerted
Don Joaquin and was condemned by him
as out of place. Not that he, of course,
found fault with respect: absence of that he
would grimly have resented; but a culte,
like Gore's, a reverence literally devout,
seemed to the old half-Indian Latin, high-
falutin, unreal: and Don Joaquin abhorred
unrealities.
Probably the young man condemned the
MARIQUITA
old as hide-bound in obtuseness of percep-
tion in reference to his daughter. As a jewel
of gold in a swine's snout she may well have
seemed to him. If so, some inkling of the
fact would surely penetrate the old horse-
raiser's inner, taciturn, but acutely watchful
consciousness. His hide was by no means
too thick for that. And, if so again, that
perception would not enhance his apprecia-
tion of the critic.
Elderly fathers are not universally more
flattered by an exalted valuation of their
daughters than by an admiring estimation
of themselves.
To himself, indeed, Gore was perfectly
respectful. And he had to admit that the
stranger learned his work well and did it
well better than the cowboys whom Don
Joaquin was not given to indulge in neglect
or slackness.
He had a notion that the cowboys con-
sidered Gore too respectable as to which
their master held his judgment in suspense.
In a possible son-in-law respectability,
unless quite suspiciously excessive, would
not be much "out of place" not that Don
32
MARIQUITA
Joaquin admitted more than the bare possi-
bility, till he had fuller certainty as to the
stranger's circumstances and antecedents,
what he called his "conditions." Given
satisfactory conditions, Mariquita's father
began to be conscious that Gore as a pos-
sible son-in-law might simplify a certain
course of his own.
For Sarella continued steadily to com-
mend herself to his ideas. He held her to
be beautiful in the extreme, and her pru-
dence he secretly acclaimed as admirable.
That she was penniless he was quite aware,
and he had a constant, sincere affection for
money; but, unless penniless, such a lovely
creature could hardly have been found on
the prairie, or be expected to remain there;
an elderly rich husband, he considered,
would have much more hold on a young
and lovely wife if she were penniless.
That the young woman had expensive
tastes he did not suppose, and he had great
and not ungrounded confidence in his own
power of repression of any taste not to his
mind, should any supervene.
Don Joaquin had two reasons for survey-
33
MARIQUITA
ing with conditional approval the idea of
marrying Sarella when he should have
made up his mind, which he had not yet
done. One was to please himself : the other
was in order that he might have a son. Mari-
quita's sex had always been against her. Be-
fore her arrival he had decided that his
child must be a boy, and her being a girl
was out of place. He disliked making
money for some other man's wife.
34
CHAPTER VII.
JACK did not like Sarella, and so it was
fortunate for that young person that
Jack's opinion was of no sort of conse-
quence. He had been longer on the range
than anyone there except Don Joaquin, and
he did much that would, if he had been a
different sort of man, have entitled him to
consider himself foreman. But he received
smaller' wages than anyone and never
dreamt of being foreman. He was believed
never to have had any other name but Jack,
and was known never to have had but one
suit of clothes, and his face and hands were
much shabbier than his clothes, owing to a
calendar of personal accidents. "That hap-
pened," he would say, " in the year the red
bull horned my eye out," or "I mind 'twas
in the Jenoorey that my leg got smashed
thro' Black Peter rollin' on me. . . ." He
had been struck in the jaw by a splinter from
a tree that had itself been struck by light-
35
MARIQUITA
ning, and the scar he called his "June
mark." A missing finger of his right hand
he called his Xmas mark because it was on
Christmas Day that the gun burst which
shot it off. These, and many other scars and
blemishes, would have marred the beauty of
an Antinoiis, and Jack had always been
ugly.
But, shabby as he was, he was marvel-
lously clean, and Mariquita was very fond
of him. His crooked body held a straight
heart, loyal and kind, and a child's mind
could not be cleaner. No human being sus-
pected that Jack hated his master, whom he
served faithfully and with stingily rewarded
toil : and he hated him not because he was
stingy to himself, but because Jack adored
Mariquita, and accused her father of indif-
ference to her. He was angry with him for
leaving her alone to do all the work, and
angry because nothing was ever done for
her, and no thought taken of her.
When Sarella and Gore came, Jack
hoped that the young man would marry
Mariquita and take her away though he
would be left desolate. Thus Mariquita
36
MARIQUITA
would be happy and her father be pun-
ished, for Jack clearly perceived that Don
Joaquin did not care for Gore, and he did
not perceive that Mariquita's departure
might be convenient to her father. But Jack
could not see that Gore himself did much to
carry out that marriage scheme. That the
young man set a far higher value on Mari-
quita than her father had ever done, Jack
did promptly understand; but he could per-
ceive no advances and watched him with
impatience.
As for Sarella, Jack was jealous of her
importance : jealous that the old man made
more of his wife's niece than of his own
daughter; jealous that she had much less to
do, and specially jealous that she had much
smarter clothes. Jack could not see Sarella's
beauty; had he possessed a looking-glass it
might have been supposed to have dislo-
cated his eye for beauty, but he possessed
none and he thought Mariquita as beau-
tiful as the dawn on the prairie.
To do her justice, Sarella was civil to the
battered old fellow, but he didn't want her
civility, and was ungrateful for it. Yet her
37
MARIQUITA
civility was to prove useful. Jack lived in a
shed at the end of the stables, where he ate
and slept, and mended l his clothes sitting up
in bed, and wearing (then only) a large pair
of spectacles, though half a pair would have
been enough. He cooked his own food,
though Mariquita would have cooked it for
him if he would have let her.
Sarella loved good eating, and on her
coming it irritated her to see so much
excellent food "made so little of." Presently
she gave specimens of her own superior
science, and Don Joaquin approved, as did
the cowboys.
"Jack," she said to him one day, "do you
ever eat anything but stew from year's end
to year's end?"
"I eats bread, too, and likewise corn por-
ridge," Jack replied coldly.
"I could tell you how to make more of
your meat I should think you'd sicken of
stew everlastingly."
"There's worse than stew," he suggested.
"I don't know what's worse, then," the
young lady retorted, wrinkling her very
pretty nose.
38
MARIQUITA
"None. That's worse," said Jack,
triumphantly.
"It seems to me," Sarella observed
thoughtfully, "as if you're growing a bit
oldish to do for yourself, and have no one to
do anything for you. An elderly man wants
a woman to keep him comfortable."
Jack snorted, but Sarella, undefeated,
proceeded to put the case of his being ill.
.Who would nurse him?
"111! IVe too much to do for sech idle-
ness. The Boss'd stare if I laid out to
get ill."
"Illness," Sarella remarked piously,
"comes from Above, and may come any day.
Haven't you anyone belonging to you, Jack?
No sister, no niece; you never were married,
I suppose, so I don't mention a daughter."
"I 'was married, though," Jack explained,
much delighted, "and had a daughter, too."
"You quite surprise me!" cried Sarella,
"quite!"
"She didn't marry me for my looks, my
wife didn't," chuckled Jack. "Nor yet for
my money."
"Out of esteem?" suggested Sarella.
39
MARIQUITA
"Can't say, I'm sure. I never heerd her
mention it. Anyway, it didn't last "
"The esteem?"
"No. The firm. She died when Ginger
was born. Since which I have remained a
bachelord."
"By Ginger you mean your daughter?"
"That's what they called her. Her aunt
took her, and she took the smallpox. But
she didn't die of it. She's alive now."
"Married, I daresay?"
"No. Single. She's as like me as you're
not," Jack explained summarily.
Sarella laughed.
"A good girl, though, I'll be bound," she
hinted amiably.
"She's never mentioned the contrary in
her letters."
"Oh, she writes! I'm glad she writes."
"Thank you, Miss Sarella. She writes
most Christmasses. And she wrote lately,
tho' it's not Christmas."
"Not ill, I hope?"
"Ill ! She's an industrious girl with plenty
o' sense . . . but her aunt's dead, and
40
MARIQUITA
she thinks o' taking a place in a boarding-
house."
"Jack," said Sarella, after a brief but
pregnant pause of consideration, "bring her
up here."
Jack regarded her with a stare of undis-
guised amazement.
"Why not?" Sarella persisted. "It would
be better for you."
"What's that to do with it?"
"And better for Miss Mariquita. It's
too much for Miss Mariquita all the work
she has to do."
"That's true anyway."
"Of course it's true. Anyone can see
that." (That Sarella saw it, considerably
surprised Jack, and provided matter for
some close consideration subsequently.)
"Look here, Jack," she went on, "I'll tell
you what. You go to Mr. Xeres and say
you'd like your daughter to come and work
for you . . ."
"And he'd tell me to go and be damned."
"But you'd not go. And he wouldn't
want you to go. And I'll speak to him."
4 1
MARIQUITA
Jack stared again. He hardly realized
yet how much steadily growing confidence
in her influence with "the Boss" Sarella felt.
He made no promise to speak to him: but
said "he'd sleep on it."
With that sleep came a certain ray of
comprehension. Miss Sarella was not think-
ing entirely of him and his loneliness, nor
entirely of Miss Mariquita. He believed
that she really expected the Boss would
marry her (as all the cowboys had believed
for some weeks) and he perceived, with
some involuntary admiration of her shrewd-
ness, that she had no idea of being left, if
Miss Mariquta should marry and go away,
to do all the work as she had done. Once
arrived at this perception of the situation,
Jack went ahead confident of Sarella's
quietly persistent help. He had not the
least dread of rough language. He had no
sensitive dread of displeasing 'his master.
He would like to have Ginger up at the
range especially as Ginger's coming would
take much of the work off Miss Mariquita's
hands. He even made Don Joaquin suspect
that if Ginger were not allowed to come
42
MARIQUITA
he, Jack, would go, and make a home for
her down in Maxwell.
It did not suit Don Joaquin to lose Jack,
and it suited him very well to listen to
Sarella.
So Ginger came, and proved, as all the
cowboys agreed, a good sort, though quite
as ugly as her father.
43
CHAPTER VIII.
ARIQUITA," said her father
one day, "does Sarella ever talk
to you about religion?"
Anything like what could be called a con-
versation was so rare between them that the
girl was surprised, and it surprised her still
more that he should choose that particular
subject.
"She asked me if we were Catholics."
"Of course we are Catholics. You said
so?"
"I didn't say 'of course,' but I said we
were. She then asked if my mother had
become one on her marriage or after-
wards."
Don Joaquin heard this with evident in-
terest, and, as Mariquita thought, with
some satisfaction.
"What did you say?" he inquired.
Mariquita glanced at him as if puzzled.
44
MARIQUITA
"I told her that my mother never became a
Catholic," she answered.
"That pleased her?"
"I don't know. She did not seem pleased
or displeased."
"She did not seem glad that I had not
insisted that my wife should be Catholic?"
"She may have been glad I did not see
that she was."
"You did not think she would have been
angry if she had heard I had insisted that
my wife should be Catholic?"
"No ; that did not appear to me."
So far as Mariquita's information went,
it satisfied her father. Only it was a pity
Sarella should know that her aunt had not
adopted his own religion.
Mariquita had not probed the motive of
his questions. Direct enough of impression,
she was not penetrating nor astute in fol-
lowing the hidden working of other persons'
minds.
"It is," he remarked, "a good thing Sa-
rella came here."
"Poor thing! She had no home left it
45
MARIQUITA
was natural she should think of coming to
her aunt."
"Yes, quite natural. And good for you
also."
"I was not lonely before
"But if I had died?"
Mariquita had never thought of his dying;
he was as strong as a tree, and she could not
picture the range without him.
"I never thought of you dying. You are
not old, father."
"Old, no ! But suppose I had died, all the
same before Sarella came what would
you have done?"
"I never thought of it."
"No. That would have been out of place.
But you could not have lived here, one girl
all alone among all the men."
"No, of course."
"Now you have Sarella. It would be dif-
ferent."
"Oh, yes; if she wished to go on living
here"
"If she went away to live somewhere else
you could go with her."
Mariquita did not see that that would be
MARIQUITA
necessary, but she did not say so. She was
not aware that her father was endeavoring
to habituate her mind to the permanence of
Sarella's connection with herself.
"Of course," he said casually, "you might
marry at any time."
"I never thought of that," the girl
answered, and he saw clearly that she never
had thought of it. Gore would, he perceived,
not have her for the asking; might have a
great deal of asking to do, and might not
succeed after much asking.
It was not so clear to him that Gore him-
self was as well aware of that as he was.
That she had never had any thoughts of
marriage pleased him, partly because he
would not have liked Gore to get what he
wanted, so easily, and partly because it satis-
fied his notion of dignity in her his daugh-
ter. It was really his own dignity in her he
was thinking of.
All the same, now that he knew she was
not thinking of marrying the handsome
stranger, he felt more clearly that (if Gore's
"conditions" were suitable) the marriage
might suit him Don Joaquin.
47
MARIQUITA
"There are," he observed sententiously,
"only two ways for women."
"Two ways?"
"Marriage is the usual way. If God had
wanted only nuns, He would have created
women only. That one sees. Whereas
there are women and men so marriage is
the ordinary way for women; and if God
chooses there should be more married
women than nuns, it shows He doesn't want
too many nuns."
The argument was new to Mariquita:
she was little used to hear any abstract dis-
cussion from her father.
"You have thought of it," she said; "I
have never thought of all that."
"There was no necessity. It might have
been out of place. All the same it is true
what I say."
"But I think it is also true that to be a
nun is the best way for some women."
"Naturally. For some."
Mariquita had no sort of desire to argue
with him, or anyone; arguments were, she
thought, almost quarrels.
He, on his side, was again thinking of
MARIQUITA
Sarella, and left the nuns alone.
"It would," he said, "be a good thing if
Sarella should become Catholic. If she
talks about religion you can explain to her
that there can be only one that is true."
Mariquita did not understand (though
everyone else did) that her father wished to
marry Sarella, and, of course, she could not
know that he was resolved against provok-
ing further punishment by marrying a
Protestant.
"If I can," she said, slowly, "I will try
to help her to see that. She does not talk
much about such things. And she is much
older than I am "
"Oh, yes; quite very much older," he
agreed earnestly, though in fact Sarella
appeared simply a girl to him.
"And it would not do good for me to seem
interfering."
"But," he agreed with some adroitness,
"though a blind person were older than you
(who can see) you would show her the
way?"
Mariquita was not, at any rate, so blind
as to be unable to see that her father was
49
MARIQUITA
strongly desirous that Sarella should be a
Catholic. It had surprised her, as she had
no recollection of his having troubled him-
self concerning her own mother, his beloved
wife, not having been one. Of course, she
was glad, thinking it meant a deeper interest
in religion on his own part.
CHAPTER IX.
BETWEEN Mariquita and her father
there was little in common except a
partial community of race; in nature
and character they were entirely different.
In her the Indian strain had only physical
expression, and that only in the slim supple-
ness of her frame; she would never grow
stout as do so many Spanish women.
Whereas in her father the Indian blood
had effects of character. He was not merely
subtle like a Latin, but had besides the craft
and cunning of an Indian. Yet the cunning
seemed only an intensification of the
subtlety, a deeper degree of the same quality
and not an added separate quality. In fact,
in him, as in many with the same mixture
of race, the Indian strain and the Spanish
were really mingled, not merely joined in
one individual. .
Mariquita had, after all, only one quarter
Spanish, and one Indian; whereas with him
MARIQUITA
it was a quarter of half and half. She had,
in actual blood, a whole half that was pure
Saxon, for her mother's New England fam-
ily was of pure English descent. Yet Mari-
quita seemed far more purely Spanish than
her father; he himself could trace nothing
of her mother in her, and in her character
was nothing Indian but her patience.
From her mother personally she inherited
nothing, but through her mother she had
certain characteristics that helped to make
her very incomprehensible to Don Joaquin,
though he did not know it.
Gore, who studied her with far more
care and interest, because to him she
seemed deeply worth study, did not himself
feel compelled to remember her triple
strain of race. For to him she seemed splen-
didly, adorably simple. He was far from
falling into Sarella's shallow mistake of
calling that simplicity "stupidity"; to him it
appeared a sublimation of purity, rarely
noble and fine. That she was book-ignorant
he knew, as well as that she was life-igno-
rant; but he did not think her intellectually
narrow, even intellectually fallow. Along
52
MARIQUITA
what roads her mind moved he could not,
by mere study of her, discover; yet he was
sure it did not stagnate without motion or
life.
About a month after the arrival of
Sarella, one Saturday night at supper, that
young person observed that Mr. Gore's
place was vacant.
Mariquita must equally have noted the
fact, but she had said nothing.
"Isn't Mr. Gore coming to his supper?"
Sarella asked her.
Don Joaquin thought this out of place.
His daughter's silence on the subject had
pleased him better.
"I don't know," Mariquita answered,
glancing towards her father.
"No," he said; "he has ridden down to
Maxwell."
Sometimes one or other of the cowboys
would ride down to Maxwell, and reappear,
without question or remark.
"I wonder he did not mention he was
going," Sarella complained.
"Of course he mentioned it," Don
53
MARIQUITA
Joaquin said loudly. "He would not go
without asking me."
"But to us ladies," Sarella persisted, "it
would have been better manners."
"That was not at all necessary," said Don
Joaquin; "Mariquita would not expect it."
"I would, though. It ought to have
struck him that one might have a communi-
cation for him. I should have had commis-
sions for him."
It was evident that Sarella had ruffled
Don Joaquin, and it was the first time any-
one had seen him annoyed by her.
Next day, after the midday meal, Sarella
followed Mariquita out of doors, and said
to her, yawning and laughing.
"Don't you miss Mr. Gore?"
Mariquita answered at once and quite
simply :
"Miss him? He was never here till a
month ago "
"Nor was I," Sarella interrupted pouting
prettily. "But you'd miss me, now."
"Only you're not going away."
"You take it for granted I shall stop,
54
MARIQUITA
then?" (And Sarella looked complacent.)
"That I'm a fixture."
"I never thought of your going away,"
Mariquita answered, with a formula rather
habitual to her. "Where would you go?"
"I should decide on that when I decided
to go." Sarella declared oracularly. But
Mariquita took it with irritating calmness.
"I don't believe you will decide to go,"
she said with that gravity and plainness of
hers that often irritated Sarella who liked
badinage. "It would be useless."
"Suppose," Sarella suggested, pinching
the younger girl's arm playfully, "suppose
I were to think of getting married.
Shouldn't I have to go then?"
"I never thought of that ' Mariquita
was beginning, but Sarella pinched and in-
terrupted her.
"Do you ever think of anything?" she
complained sharply.
"Oh, yes, often, of many things."
"What things on earth?" (with sudden
inquisitive eagerness.)
"Just my own sort of things," Mariquita
answered, without saying whether "her
55
MARIQUITA
things" were on earth at all. Sarella pouted
again.
"You're not very confidential to a
person."
Mariquita weighed the accusation. "Per-
haps," she said quietly, "I am not much
used to persons. Since I came home from
the convent there was no other girl here till
you came."
"So you're sorry I came!"
"No ; glad. I am glad you did that. It is
a home for you. And I am sure my father
is glad."
"You think he likes my being here?"
And Sarella listened attentively for the
answer.
"Of course. You must see it."
"You think he does not dislike me? He
was cross with me last night."
"He did not like you noticing Mr. Gore
was away "
"Of course I noticed it surely, he could
not be jealous of that!"
"I should not think he could be jealous,"
Mariquita agreed, too readily to please
Sarella. "But I did not think of it. I am
56
MARIQUITA
sure he does not dislike you. You cannot
think he does."
Sarella was far from thinking it. But she
had wanted Mariquita to say more, and was
only partly satisfied.
"He would not like me to go away?" she
suggested.
"Oh, no. The contrary."
"Not even if it were advantageous to
me?"
"How advantageous?"
"If I were to be going to a home of my
own? Going, for instance, to be married?"
"That would surprise him . . ."
Sarella was not pleased at this.
"Surprise him! Why should it surprise
him that anyone should marry me?"
"There is no reason. Only, he does not
imagine that there is someone. If there is
someone, he would suppose you had not
been willing to marry him by your coming
here instead."
("Is she stupid or cautious?" Sarella
asked herself. "She will say nothing.")
Mariquita was neither cautious nor
stupid. She was only ignorant of Sarella's
57
MARIQUITA
purpose, and by no means awake to her
father's.
"It is terribly hot out here," Sarella
grumbled, "and there is such a glare. I
shall go in and study."
CHAPTER X.
MARIQUITA did not go in too. She
did not find it hot, nor did the glare
trouble her. The air was full of life
and vigor, and she had no sense of lassitude.
There was, indeed, a breeze from the far-off
Rockies, and to her it seemed cool enough,
though the sun was so nearly directly over-
head that her figure cast only a very stunted
shadow of herself. In the long grass the
breeze made a slight rustle, but there was
no other sound.
Mariquita did not want to be indoors;
outside, here on the tilted prairie, she was
alone and not lonely. The tilt of the vast
space around her showed chiefly in this
that eastward the horizon was visibly lower
than at the western rim of the prairie. The
prairie was not really flat; between her and
both horizons there lay undulations, those
between her and the western rising into
mesas, which, with a haze so light as only to
59
MARIQUITA
tell in the great distance, hid the distant bar-
rier of the Rocky Mountains, whose foot-
hills even were beyond the frontiers of this
State.
She knew well where they were, though,
and knew almost exactly beyond which point
of the far horizon lay Loretto Heights,
beyond Denver, and the Convent.
Somehow the coming of these two new
units to the range-life had pushed the Con-
vent farther away still. But Mariquita's
thoughts never rested in the mere memories
hanging like a slowly fading arras around
that long-concluded convent life. What it
had given her was more than the memories
and was hers still.
As to the mere memories, she knew that
with slow but increasing pace they were
receding from her, till on time's horizon
they would end in a haze, golden but vague
and formless. Voices once clearly recalled
were losing tone ; faces, whose features had
once risen before the eye of memory with
little less distinctness than that with which
she had seen them when physically present,
arose now blurred like faces passing a fog.
60
MARIQUITA
Even their individuality, depending less on
feature than expression, was no longer easily
recoverable.
She had been used to remember this and
that nun by her very footsteps ; now the nuns
moved, a mere group in one costume,
soundlessly, with no footstep at all.
Of this gradual loss of what had been
almost her only private possession she made
no inward wishful complaint; Mariquita
was not morbid, nor melancholy. The op-
eration of a natural law of life could not fill
her with the poet's rebellious outcry. To
all law indeed she yielded without protest,
whether it implied submission without in-
ward revolt to the mere shackles of circum-
stance, or submission to her father's domi-
nance; for it was not in her fashion of mind
to form hypothesis such hypothesis, for in-
stance, as that of her father calling upon
her to take some course opposed to con-
science. Though her gaze was turned to-
wards the point of the horizon under which
the Convent and its intimates were, it was
not simply to dream of them that she yielded
herself.
61
MARIQUITA
All that life had had a centre not for
herself only, but for all there. The sim-
plicity of the life consisted, above all, in
the simplicity of its object. Its routine,
almost mechanically regular, was not me-
chanical because of its central meaning. No
doubt the "work" of the nuns was educa-
tion, but their work of education was service
of a Master. And the Master was Himself
the real object, the centre of the work, as
carried on within those quiet, 'busy walls.
Mariquita no longer formed a part, though
the work was still operative in her, and had
not ceased with her removal from the work-
ers ; but she was as near as ever to its centre,
and was now more concerned with the ulti-
mate object of the work than with the work.
Her memories were weakening in color
and definiteness, but her possession was not
decreased, her possession was the Master
who possessed herself.
The simplicity that Gore had from the
first noted in her, without being able to in-
form himself wherein it consisted but
which he venerated without knowing its
source, that he knew was noble was first
62
MARIQUITA
that Mariquita did in fact live and move
and have her being, as nominally all His
creatures do, in the Master of that vanished
convent life. What the prairie was to her
body, surroundiag it, its sole background
and scene and stage of action, He was to
her inward, very vivid, wholly silent life;
what the prairie was to her healthy lungs,
He was to her soul, its breath, "inspiration."
Banal and stale as such metaphor is, in her
the two lives were so unified (in this was
the rarity of her "simplicity") that it was
at least completely accurate.
With Mariquita that which we call the
supernatural life was not occasional and
spasmodic. That inspiration of Our Lord
was not, as with so many, a gulp, or periodic
series of gulps, but a breathing as steady and
soundless as the natural breathing of her
strong, sane, flawless body.
She did not, like the self-conscious pietist,
listen to it. She did not, like the patho-
logical pietist, test its pulse or temperature.
The pathological pietist is still self-student,
though studious of self in a new relation;
still breathes her own breath at second-
63
MARIQUITA
hand, and remains indoors within the four
walls of herself.
Of herself Mariquita knew little. That
God had given her, in truth, existence; that
she knew. That she was, because He chose.
That He had been born, and died, and lived
again, for her sake, as much as for the sake
of any one of all the saints, though not more
than for the sake of the human being in all
the world who thought least of Him: that
she knew. That He loved her incompar-
ably better than she could love herself or
any other person that she knew with a
reality of knowledge greater than that with
which any lover ever knows himself beloved
by the lover who would give and lose every-
thing for him. That He had already set in
her another treasure, the capacity of loving
Him that also she knew with ineffable rev-
erence and gladness, and that the power of
loving Him grew in her, as the power of
knowing Him grew.
But concerning herself Mariquita knew
little except such things as these. She had
studied neither her own capacities nor her
own limitations, neither her tastes, nor her
64
MARIQUITA
gifts. That Sarella thought her stupid, she
was hardly aware, and less than half aware
that Sarella was wrong. No human creature
had ever told her that she was beautiful, and
she had never made any guess on the subject
with Herself. She never wondered if she
were happy, or ever unjustly disinherited of
the means of happiness. Whether, in less
strait thrall of circumstance, she might be
of more consequence, even of more use, she
never debated. She had not dreamed of
being heroic; had no chafing at absence of
either sphere or capacity for being brilliant.
Her life was passing in a silence singularly
profound among the lives of God's other
human creatures, and its silence, unhuman-
ness, oblivion (that deepest of oblivion lying
beneath what has been known though for-
gotten) did not vexl her, and was never
thought of. Her duties were coarse and
common ; but they were those God had set
in her way and sight, and she had no im-
patience of them, no scorn for them, but
just did them. They were not more coarse
or common than those He had himself
found to His hand, and done, in the house
65
MARIQUITA
at Nazareth where Joseph was master, and,
after Joseph, Mary was mistress, and He,
their Creator, third, to obey and serve them.
It would be greatly unjust to Mariquita
to say that the monotone of her life was
made golden by the bright haze in which it
moved. She lived not in a dream, but in
an atmosphere. She was not a dreamy per-
son, moving through realities without con-
sciousness of them. She saw all around her,
with living interest, only she saw beyond
them with interest deeper still, or rather
their own significance for her was made
deeper by her sense of what was beyond
them, and to which they, like herself, be-
longed. She was very conscious of her
neighbors, not only of the human neighbors,
but also of the live creatures not human;
and each of these had, in her reverence, a
definite sacredness as coming like herself
from the hand of God.
There was nothing pantheistic in this;
seeing everything as God's she did not see it
itself Divine, but every natural object was
to her clear vision but a thread in the clear,
transparent veil through which God showed
66
MARIQUITA
Himself everywhere. When St. Francis
"preached to the birds" he was in fact
listening to their sermon to him; and
Mariquita, in her close neighborly friend-
ship with the small wild creatures of the
prairie, was only worshipping the ineffable,
kind friendliness of God, who had made,
and who fed, them also. The love she gave
them was only one of the myriad silent ex-
pressions of her love for Him, who loved
them. They were easier and simpler to
understand than her human neighbors. It
was not that, for an instant, she thought
them on the same plane of interest but we
must here interrupt ourselves as she was
interrupted.
CHAPTER XI.
MARIQUITA had been alone a long
time when Gore, riding home,
came suddenly upon her.
She was sitting where a clump of trees
cast now a shadow, and it was only in com-
ing round them that he saw her when
already very near her. The ground was
soft there, and his horse's hoofs had made
scarcely any sound.
She turned her head, and he saluted her,
at the same moment slipping from the
saddle.
"I thought you were far away," she said.
"I have been far away at Maxwell. It
has been a long ride."
"Yes, that is a long way," she said. "But
I never go there."
"No? I went to hear Mass."
She was surprised, never having thought
that he was a Catholic.
68
MARIQUITA
"I did not know you were a Catholic,"
she told him.
"No wonder! I have been here a month
and never been to Mass before."
"It is so far. I never go."
"You are a Catholic, then?"
"Oh, yes; I think all Spaniards are
Catholics."
"But not all Americans," Gore suggested
smiling.
"No. And of course, we are Americans,
my father and I."
"Exactly. No doubt I knew your names,
both surname and Christian name, were
Spanish, and I supposed you were of Catho-
lic descent "
"Only," she interrupted with a quiet mat-
ter-of-factness, "you saw we never went to
Mass."
"Perhaps a priest comes here sometimes
and gives you Mass."
"No, never. If it were not so very far, I
suppose my father would let me ride down
to Maxwell occasionally, at all events. But
he would not let me go alone, and none of
the men are Catholics; besides, he would not
MARIQUITA
wish me to go with one of them; and then
it would be necessary to go down on Satur-
day and sleep there. Of course, he would
not permit that. But," and she did not smile
as she said this, "it must seem strange to you,
who are a Catholic, to think that I, who am
one also, should never hear Mass. Since I
left the Convent and came home I do not
hear it. That may scandalize you."
"I shall never be scandalized by you," he
answered, also without smiling.
"That is best," she said. "It is generally
foolish to be scandalized, because we can
know so little about each other's case."
She paused a moment, and he thought
how little need she could ever have of any
charitable suspension of judgment. He
knew well enough by instinct, that this in-
ability to hear Mass must be the great dis-
inheritance of her life here on the prairie,
her submission to it, her great obedience.
"But," she went on earnestly, "I hope you
will not take any scandal at my father either
from my saying that he would not permit
my going down to Maxwell and staying
there all night on Saturday so as to hear
70
MARIQUITA
Mass on Sunday morning. (There is, you
know, only one Mass there, and that very
early, because the priest has to go far into
the county on the other side of Maxwell
to give another Mass.) We know no family
down there with whom I could stay. He
would think it impossible I should stay with
strange people or in an hotel. Our Span-
ish ideas would forbid that."
"Oh, yes; I can fully understand. You
need not fear my being so stupid as to take
scandal. I have all my life had enough to
do being scandalized at myself."
"Ah, yes! That is so. One finds that
always. Only one knows that God is more
indulgent to one's faults than one has
learned to be oneself; that patience comes
so very slowly, and slower still the humility
that would teach one to be never surprised
at any fault in oneself."
Gore reverenced her too truly to say,
"Any fault would surprise me in you." He
only assented to her words, as if they were
plain and cold matter-of-fact, and let hct
go on, for he knew she had more to say.
"I would like," she told him, "to finish
MARIQUITA
about my father. Because to you he may
seem just careless. You may think, 'But
why should not he take her down to Max-
well and hear Mass himself also?' Coming
from the usual life of Catholics to this life
of ours on the prairies, it may easily occur
to you like that. You cannot possibly know
as if you had read it in a book a man's
life like my father's. He was born far away
from here, out in the desert in New Mex-
ico. His father baptized him just as he
baptized me. There was no priest. There
was no Mass. How could he learn to think
it a necessary part of life? no one can learn
to think necessary what is impossible.
From that desert he came to this wilder-
ness ; very different, but just as empty. No
Mass here either, no priest. How could he
be expected to think it necessary to ride far,
far away to find Mass? It would be to him
like riding away to find a picture gallery.
He couldn't be away every Saturday and
Sunday. That would not be possible; and
what is not possible is no sin. And what is
no sin on three Sundays out of four, or one
Sunday out of two, how should it seem a sin
72 '
MARIQUITA
on the other Sunday? I hope you will un-
derstand all that."
"Indeed, yes! I hope you do not think
I have been judging your father! That
would be a great impertinence."
"Towards God yes. That is His busi-
ness, and no one else understands it at all.
No, I did not think you would have been
judging. Only I thought you might be
troubled a little. It is a great loss, my
father's and mine, that we live out here
where there is no Mass, and where there are
no Sacraments. But Our Lord does the
same things differently. It is not hard for
Him to make up losses."
One thing which struck the girl's hearer
was that the grave simplicity of her tones
was never sad. It seemed to him the per-
fection of obedience.
"My father," she went on, "is very good.
He always tells the truth. Those who deal
in horses are said to tell many lies about
them. He never does. He is very just-
to the men, and everybody. And he does
not grind them, nor does he insult them in
reproof. He hates laziness and stupidity,
73
MABIQUITA
and will not suffer either. Yet he does not
gibe in finding fault nor say things, being
master, to which they being servants may
not retort. That makes fault-finding bitter
and intolerable. He works very hard and
takes no pleasure. He greatly loved my
mother, and was in all things a true hus-
band. That was a great burden God laid on
him the loss of her, -but he carried it
always in silence. You can hardly know all
these things."
Gore saw that she was more observant
than he had fancied that she had been
conscious of criticism in him of her father,
and was earnest in exacting justice for him.
"But," he said, "I shall not forget them
now."
"I shall thank you for that," she told him,
beginning to move forward towards the
homestead that was full in sight, half a mile
away. "And it will be getting very late.
Tea is much later on Sunday, for the men
like to sleep, but it will be time now."
They walked on together, side by side, he
leading his horse by the bridle hung loosely
over his shoulder. The horse after its very
74
MARIQUITA
long journey of to-day and yesterday was
tired out, and only too willing to go straight
to his stable.
They did not now talk much. Don
Joaquin, watching them as they came from
the house door, saw that.
75
CHAPTER XII.
\ >TR GORE came back with you,"
^^y I he said to Mariquita as she
joined him. Gore had gone
round to the stables with his horse.
"Yes. As he came back from Maxwell
he passed the place where I was sitting, and
we came on together after talking for a
time."
Mariquita did not think her father was
cross-examining her. Nor was he. He was
not given to inquisitiveness, and seldom
scrutinized her doings.
"Mr. Gore," she continued, "went to
Maxwell for the sake of going to Mass."
"So he is a Catholic!" And Mariquita
observed with pleasure that her father spoke
in a tone of satisfaction. He had never
before appeared to be in the least concerned
with the religion of any of the men about
the place.
That night, after Sarella and Mariquita
MARIQUITA
had gone to bed, Don Joaquin had another
satisfaction. He and Gore were alone,
smoking; all the large party ate together,
but the cowboys went off to their own quar-
ters after meals. Only Don Joaquin, his
daughter, Sairella and Gore slept in the
dwelling-house. So high up above sea-level,
it was cold enough at night, and the log fire
was pleasant.
What gave him satisfaction was that Gore
asked him about the price of a range, and
whether a suitable one was to be had any-
where near.
"It would not be," Don Joaquin bade him
note, "the price of the range only. Without
some capital it would be throwing money
away to buy one."
"Of course. What would range and stock
and all cost?"
"That would depend on the size of the
range, and the amount of stock it would
bear. And also on whether the range were
very far out, like this one. If it were near a
town and the railway, it would cost more
to buy."
Gore quite understood that, and Don
77
MARIQUITA
Joaquin spoke of "Elaine's" range. "It
lies nearer Maxwell than this. But it is not
so large, and Elaine has never made much
of it he had not capital enough to put on
it the stock it should have had, and he was
never the right man. A townsman in all
his bones, and his wife towny too. And
their girls worse. He 'wants to clear. He
will never do good there."
The two men discussed the matter at some
length. It seemed to the elder of them that
Gore would seriously entertain the plan,
and had the money for the purchase.
"I have thought sometimes," said Joa-
quin, "of buying Elaine's myself."
"Of course, I would not think of it if you
wanted it. I would not even make any in-
quiry that would be sending the price up."
"Yes. But, if you decide to go in for it,
I shall not mind. I have land enough and
stock enough, and work enough. I should
have bought it if I had a son growing up."
It was satisfactory to Don Joaquin to find
that Gore could buy a large range and
afford capital to stock it. If he went on
with such a purchase it would prove him
78
MARIQUITA
"substantial as to conditions." And he was
a Catholic, also a good thing.
Only Sarella should be a Catholic also.
"So you went down to Maxwell to go to
Mass," he said, just as they were putting out
their pipes to go to bed. "That was not out
of place. Perhaps one Saturday we may go
down together."
Gore said, of course, that he would be
glad of his company.
"It would not be myself only," Don
Joaquin explained; I should take my
daughter and her cousin."
When Gore had an opportunity of telling
this to Mariquita she was full of gladness.
"See," she said, "how strong good ex-
ample is!"
"Is your cousin, then, also a Catholic?"
he asked, surprised without knowing why.
"Oh, no! My father regrets it, and would
like her to be one. That shows he thinks of
religion more than you might have guessed."
Gore thought that it showed something
else as well. It did not, however, seem to
have occurred to Mariquita that her father
wanted to marry her cousin.
79
MARIQUITA
Sarella strongly approved the idea of
going down, all four of them together, to
Maxwell some Saturday.
"Of course," she said, "it would be for
two nights, at least. He couldn't expect us
to ride back on the Sunday. It will be a
treat we must insist on starting early
enough to get down there before the shops
shut. I daresay there will be a theatre."
Mariquita, suddenly, after five years,
promised the chance of hearing Mass and
going to Holy Communion, was not sur-
prised that Sarella should only think of it
as an outing; she was not a Catholic. But
she thought it as well to give Sarella a hint.
"I expect," she said, "father will be
hoping that you would come to Mass with
us."
"I? Do you think that? He knows I am
not a Catholic why should he care?"
"Oh, he would care. I am sure of that."
Sarella laughed.
"You sly puss! I believe you want to
convert me," she said, shaking her head
jocularly at Mariquita.
"Of course I should be glad if you were
80
MARIQUITA
a Catholic. Any Catholic would."
"I daresay you would. But your father
never troubles himself about such things
he leaves them to the women. He wouldn't
care."
"Yes, he would. You must not judge my
father he thinks without speaking; he is a
very silent person."
Sarella laughed again.
"Not so silent as you imagine," she said
slyly; "he talks to me, my dear."
"Very likely. I daresay you are easier
to talk to than I am. For I too am silent I
have not seen towns and things like you."
"It does make a difference," Sarella
admitted complacently. Then, with more
covert interest than she showed: "If you
really think he would like me to go with
you to Mass, I should be glad to please him.
After all, one should encourage him in this
desire to resume his religious duties. Per-
haps he would take us again."
"I am quite sure he would like you to
hear Mass with us," Mariquita repeated
slowly.
"Then I will do so. You had better tell
81
MARIQUITA
me about it one would not like to do the
wrong thing."
Perhaps Mariquita told her more about
it than Sarella had intended.
"She is tremendously in earnest, anyway,"
Sarella decided; "she can talk on that
eagerly enough. I must say," she thought,
good-naturedly, "I am glad her father's
giving her the chance of doing it. I had no
idea she felt about it like that. She is good
to care so much and never say a word of
what it is to her not to have it. I never
thought there was an ounce of religion about
the place. She evidently thinks her father
cares, too. I should want some persuading
of that. But she may be right in saying he
expects me to go to his church. She is very
positive. And some men are like that
their women must do what they do. They
leave church alone for twenty years, but
when they begin to go to church their
women must go at once. And the Don is
masterful enough. Perhaps he thinks it's
time he began to remember his soul. If so,
he is sure to begin by bothering about other
people's souls. She thinks a lot more of
82
MARIQUITA
him than he thinks of her. In his way,
though, he is just as Spanish as she is; I
suppose that's why I'm to go to Mass."
CHAPTER XIII.
DON JOAQUIN had sounded Mari-
quita with reference to Sarella's
religion. It suited him to sound
Sarella in reference to Mariquita and
another person. This he would not have
done had he not regarded Sarella as poten-
tially a near relation.
"Mr. Gore talks about interesting
things?" he observed tentatively.
"What people call 'interesting things' are
sometimes very tedious," she answered
smartly, intending to please him.
He was a little pleased, but not diverted
from his purpose. He never was diverted
from his purposes.
"He is a different sort of person from any
Mariquita has known," he remarked; "con-
versation like his must interest her."
"Only, she does not converse with him."
"But she hears."
"Oh! Mariquita hears everything."
MARIQUITA
"You don't think she finds him tedious?"
"Oh, no! She does not know anyone is
tedious." It by no means struck her father
that this was a fault in her.
"It is better to be content with one's
company," he said. Then, "He does not
find her tedious, I think, though she speaks
little."
"Mr. Gore? Anything but!" And Sarella
laughed.
Don Joaquin waited for more, and got it.
"Nobody could interest him more," she
declared with conviction, shaking her head
with pregnant meaning.
"Ah ! So I have thought sometimes," Don
Joaquin agreed.
"Anyone could see it. Except Mari-
quita," she proceeded.
"Mariquita not?"
"Not she! Mariquita's eyes look so high
she cannot see you and me, nor Mr. Gore."
After "you and me" Sarella had made an
infinitesimal pause, and had darted an in-
stantaneous glance at Don Joaquin. He had
scarcely time to catch the glance before it
8s
MARIQUITA
was averted and Sarella added, "or Mr.
Gore."
Don Joaquin did not think it objection-
able in his daughter "not to see" "you and
me" himself and Sarella too hastily. But
it would ultimately be advisable that she
should see what was coming before it
actually came. That would save telling.
Neither would he have been pleased if she
had quickly scented a lover in Mr. Gore;
that would have offended her father's sense
of dignity. Nor would it have been advis-
able for her to suspect a lover in Mr. Gore
at any time, if Mr. Gore were not intending
to be one. Once he was really desirous of
being one, and her father approved, she
might as well awake to it.
"It is true," he said, "Mariquita has not
those ideas."
There was undoubtedly a calm communi-
cation in his tone. Sarella could not decide
whether it implied censure of "those ideas"
elsewhere.
"Not seeing what can be seen," she sug-
gested with some pique, "may deceive
others. Thus false hopes are given."
86
MARIQUITA
"Mariquita has given no hopes to any-
one," her father declared sharply.
"Certainly not. Yet Mr. Gore may think
that what is visible must be seen like his
'interest' in her; and that, since it is seen
and not disapproved . . ."
"Only, as you said, Mariquita doesn't
see."
"He may not understand that. He may
see nothing objectionable in himself . . ."
"There is nothing objectionable. The
contrary."
And Sarella knew from his tone that Don
Joaquin did not disapprove of Mr. Gore as
a possible son-in-law.
"How hard it is," she thought, "to get
these Spaniards to say anything out. Why
can't they say what they mean?"
Sarella was not deficient in a sort of
superficial good-nature. It seemed to her
that she would have to "help things along."
She thought it out of the question for Mari-
quita to go on indefinitely at the range, doing
the work of three women for no reward,
and rapidly losing her youth, letting her life
be simply wasted. There had never been
MARIQUITA
anyone before Mr. Gore, and never would
be anyone else; it would be a providential
way out of the present impossible state of
things if he and Mariquita should make a
match of it. And why shouldn't they? She
did not believe that he was actually in love
with Mariquita yet ; perhaps he never would
be till he discovered in her some sort of
response. And Mariquita if left to herself
was capable of going on for ten years just
as she was.
"Mr. Gore," she told Don Joaquin, "is
not the sort of man to throw himself at a
girl's head if he imagined it would be un-
pleasant to her."
"Why should he be unpleasant to her?"
"No reason at all. And he isn'kunpleas-
ant to her. Only she never thinks of that
sort of thing."
Her father did not want her to "think of
that sort of thing" till called upon. Sarella
saw that, and thought him as stupid as his
daughter.
His idea of what would be correct was
that Gore should "speak to him," that he
should (after due examination of his condi-
MARIQUITA
tions) signify approval, first to Gore him-
self, and then to Mariquita, whereupon it
would be her duty to listen encouragingly to
Mr. Gore's proposals. Don Joaquin made
Sarella understand that these were his
notions.
("How Spanish!" she thought.)
"You'll never get it done that way," she
told him shortly. "Mr. Gore will not say a
word to you till he thinks Mariquita would
not be offended "
"Why should she be offended!"
"She would be, if Mr. Gore came to you,
till she had given him some cause for believ-
ing she cared at all for him. He knows
that well enough. You may be sure that
while she seems unaware of his taking an
interest in her, he will never give you the
least hint. He doesn't 'want to marry her
yet. He won't let himself want it before
she gives some sign.
Sarella understood her own meaning quite
well, but Don Joaquin did not understand
it so clearly.
He took an early opportunity of saying
to his daughter:
MARIQUITA
"I think Mr. Gore a nice man. He is
correct. I approve of him. And it is an
advantage that he is a Catholic."
To call it "an advantage" seemed to
Mariquita a dry way of putting it, but then
her father 'was dry.
"Living in the house," he continued,
wishing she would say something, "he must
be intimate with us. I find him suitable for
that. One would not care for it in every
case. Had he turned out a different sort of
person, I should not have wished for any
friendship between him and yourselves
Sarella and you. It might have been out
of place."
"I do not think there would ever be much
friendship between Sarella and him," said
Mariquita ; "she hardly listens when he talks
about things "
"But you should listen. It would be not
courteous to make him think you found his
conversation tedious."
"Tedious! I listen with interest."
"No doubt. And there is nothing out of
place in your showing it. He is no longer
a stranger to us."
90
MARIQUITA
"He is kind," she said. "He Worked hard
to help Jack in getting his shed fit for
Ginger. It was he who built the partitions.
Jack told me. Mr. Gore said nothing about
it. Also, he was good to Ben Sturt when he
hurt his knee and could not ride; he went
and sat with him, chatting, and read funny
books to him. He is a very kind person. I
am glad you like him I was not sure."
"I waited. One wishes to know a
stranger before liking him, as you call it;
what is more important, I approve of him,
and find him correct."
Whether this helped much we cannot say.
Sarella didn't think so, though Don
Joaquin reported it to her with much com-
placence.
"She must know now," he said, "that I
authorize him."
CHAPTER XIV.
JACK sounded Mr. Gore's praises loudly
in Mariquita's ears, and she heard them
gladly. She thought well of her fellow-
creatures, and it was always pleasant to her
to hear them commended.
Jack also bragged a little of his diplo-
macy, bidding his daughter note how Miss
Mariquita had been pleased by his praise of
her sweetheart.
u Miss Mariquita has not got even a
sweetheart," Ginger declared, "and maybe
never will. It isn't the way of her. She
was just as proud when you said a good
word for Ben Sturt."
"Ben Sturt! What's he to the young
mistress?"
"Just nothing at all not in that way.
Nor yet Mr. Gore isn't. And the more's
the pity. But she's good-hearted. She likes
to hear good of folk as much as some likes
to hear ill of anybody, no matter who."
92
MARIQUITA
Jack was a little discouraged but not
effectually.
Mr. Gore was much too slow, he thought.
iWhy should Miss Mariquita be thinking of
him unless he "let on" how much he was
thinking of her?
"Did you ever lie under an apple-tree
when the blossom was on it?" he asked Gore
one day.
"I daresay I have."
"And expected to have your mouth full
of apples when there was only blossom
on it?"
Jack forced so much meaning into his
ugly old face that Gore could discern the
allegorical intent. He was very amused.
"There'd never be much chance of
apples," he said carelessly, "if the tree was
shaken till the blossom fell off. The wind
spoils more blossom than the frost does."
Jack was not the only one who thought
Gore slow in his wooing; the cowboys
thought so too, though they did not, like
Jack, find any fault with him for his slow-
ness. In general they would have been more
critical of rapidity and apparent success. Ben
93
MARIQUITA
Sturt had learned to like him cordially, and
wished him success, but Ben was of opinion
that more haste would have been worse
speed. He thought that Gore deserved
Mariquita if anyone could, but was sure
that even Gore would have to wait long and
be very patient and careful. To Ben Mari-
quita seemed almost like one belonging to
another world, certainly living on a plane
above his comprehension, where ordinary
love-making would be, somehow, unfitting
and hopeless. It had always met with her
father's cool approbation that Mariquita
kept herself aloof from the young men
about the place. But she was not wanting
in interest for them. They were her neigh-
bors, and she, who had so much interest for
all her little dumb neighbors of the prairie,
had a much higher interest in these bigger,
but not much less dumb, neighbors of the
homestead. They were more than a mere
group to her. Each individual in the group
ivvas, she knew, as dear to God as herself,
had been created by God for the same pur-
pose as herself, and for the soul of each,
Christ upon the Cross had been in as bitter
94
MARIQUITA
labor as for the soul of any one of the
saints. She was the last creature on earth
to regard as of mere casual interest to herself
those in whom God's interest was so deep,
and close, and unfailing.
Perhaps they were rough; it might be
that of the great things of which Mariquita
herself thought so habitually, they thought
little and seldom: but she did not think
them bad. She thought more of them than
they guessed, and liked them better than
they imagined. She would have wished
to serve and help them, and was not indo-
lent, but humble concerning herself, and
shy. She worked for them, more perhaps
than her father thought necessary; in that
way she could serve them. But she could
not preach to them, nor exhort them. She
would have shrunk instinctively, not from
the danger of ridicule, but from the danger
that the ridicule might fall on religion itself,
and not merely on her. She would have
dreaded the risk of misrepresenting religion
to them, of giving them ideas of God such
as would repel them from Him. She knew
that speech was not easy to her, eloquent
95
MARIQUITA
speech was no gift of hers; she did not be-
lieve herself to have any readiness of ex-
pressing what she felt and knew, and did
not credit herself with great knowledge.
She did not really put them down as being
entirely ignorant of what she did know.
The idea of a woman's preaching would
have shocked Mariquita, to her it would
have seemed "out of place." She was a
humble girl, with a diffidence not universal
among those who are themselves trying to
serve God, some of whom are apt to be slow
at understanding that others may be as near
Him as themselves, though behaving dif-
ferently, and holding a different fashion of
speech.
God who had made them must know
more about them, she felt, than she could.
She did not think she understood them very
well, but God had made the men and knew
them as well as He knew the women. She
was, with all her ignorance and her limited
opportunities of observation and under-
standing, able to see much goodness among
these neighbors of hers; He must be able
to see much more.
MARIQUITA
In reality Mariquita did more for them
than she had any idea of. They understood
that in her was something higher than their
understanding; that her goodness was real
they did understand. It never shocked them
as the "goodness" of some good people would
by a first instinct have shocked them, by its
uncharity, its self-conscious superiority, its
selfishness, its complacence, its eagerness to
assume the Divine prerogative of judgment
and of punishment. They were, perhaps
unconsciously, proud of her, who was so
plainly never proud of herself. They knew
that she was kind. They had penetration
enough to be aware that if she held her own
way, in some external aloofness, it was not
out of cold indifference, or self-centred
pride, not even out of a prudish shrinking
from their roughness. They became less
rough. Their behavior in her sight and
hearing was not without effect upon their
behavior in her absence. She taught them
a reverence for woman that may only have
begun in respect for herself. Almost all
of them cared enough for her approval to
try and become more capable of deserving
97
MARIQUITA
it. Some of them, God who taught them
knows how, became conscious of her lonely
absorption in prayer, and the prairie be-
came less empty to them. Probably none
of them remained ignorant that to the girl
God was life and breath, happiness and
health, master and companion : the explana-
tion of herself and of her beauty. They
did not understand it all, but they saw more
than they understood.
The loveliness of each flower preached
to Mariquita; sometimes she would sit
upon the ground, her heart beating, hold-
ing in her hand one of those tiny weeds
that millions of eyes can overlook without
perceiving they are beautiful, insignificant
in size, without any blaze of color, and
realize its marvel of loveliness with a sin-
gular exultation; she would note the
exquisite perfection of its minute parts
that each tiny spray was a string of stars,
white, or tenderest azure, or mauve, gold-
centred, a microscopic installation hidden
all its life on the prairie-floor, as if falling
from heaven it had grown smaller and
smaller as it neared the earth. Her heart
MARIQUITA
beat, I say, as she looked, and the light shin-
ing in her happy eyes was exultation at the
unimaginable loveliness of God, who had
imagined this minutest creature, and
thought it worth while to conceive this and
every other lovely thing for the house even
of His children's exile and probation, their
waiting-room on the upward road. So it
preached to her the Uncreated Beauty, and
the unbeginning, Eternal Love. As uncon-
scious as was the little flower of its frag-
rance, its loveliness and its message, Mari-
quita, who could never have preached, was
giving her message too.
Her rough neighbors saw her near them
and (perhaps without knowing that they
knew it) knew that that which made her
rare and exquisite was of Divine origin.
She never hinted covert exhortation in her
talk. If shew poke to any of them they could
listen without dread of some shrewdly
folded rebuke. Yet they could not get away
from the fact that she was herself a per-
petual reminder of noble purpose.
99
CHAPTER XV.
WHAT the cowboys had come, with
varying degrees of slowness or
celerity, to feel by intuitions little
instructed by experience or reasoning, Gore
had to arrive at by more deliberate study.
He was more civilized and less instinc-
tive. He knew many more people, and had
experience, wanting to them, of many
women of fine and high character. What
made the rarity of Mariquita's instinct did
not inform him, and he had to observe and
surmise.
He saw no books in the house, and did
not perceive how Mariquita could read;
she must, in the way of information and
knowledge such as most educated girls pos-
sess be, as it were, disinherited. Yet he did
not feel that she was ignorant. It is more
ignorant to have adopted false knowledge
than to be uninformed.
Every day added to Gore's sense of the
girl's rarity and nobility. He admired her
TOO
MARIQUITA
more and more, the reverence of his admi-
ration increasing with its growth. Nor was
his appreciation blind, or blinded. He
surmised a certain lack in her the absence
of humor, and he was, at any rate, so far
correct that Mariquita was without the
habit of humor. Long after this time, she
was thought by her companions to have a
delightful radiant cheerfulness like mirth.
But when Gore first knew her, what occa-
sion had she had for indulgence in the
habit of humor?
Her father's house was not gay, and he
would have thought gaiety in it out of place.
Loud laughter might resound in the cow-
boys' quarters, but Don Joaquin would have
much disapproved any curiosity in his
daughter as to its cause. He seldom laughed
himself and never wished to make anyone
else laugh. His Spanish blood and his In-
dian blood almost equally tended to make
him regard laughter and merriment as a
slur on dignity.
Some of those who have attempted the
elusive feat of analyzing the causes and
origin of humor lay down that it lies in a
101
MARIQUITA
perception of the incongruous, the less fit.
I should be sorry to think that a complete
account of the matter. No doubt it describes
the occasion of much of our laughter,
though not, I refuse to believe, of all.
That sense of humor implies little charity,
and a good deal of conscious superiority. It
makes us laugh at accidents not agreeable to
those who suffer them, at uncouthness, ig-
norances, solecisms, inferiorities, follies,
blunders, stupidities, unconsciously dis-
played weaknesses and faults. It is the sort
of humor that sets us laughing at a smartly
dressed person fallen into a filthy drain, at
a man who does not know how to eat
decently, at mispronunciation of names,
and misapplication or oblivion of aspirates,
at greediness not veiled by politeness, at a
man singing who doesn't know how. Now
Mariquita had no conceit and was steeped in
charity in big and little things. In that
sort of humor she would have been lacking,
for she would have thought too kindly of
its butt to be able to enjoy his misfortune.
And, as has been already said, she had no
habit of the thing.
102
MARIQUITA
Gore, in accusing her of lack of humor,
felt that the accusation was a heavy one. It
was not quite unjust: we have partly
explained 1 Mariquita's deficiency without
entirely denying it, or pretending it was an
attraction. No doubt, she would have been
a greater laugher if she had been more ill-
natured, had had wider opportunities of
perceiving the absurdity of her contem-
poraries.
As for those queer and quaint quips of
circumstance that make the oddity of daily
life for some of us, few of them had en-
livened Mariquita. The chief occasion of
general gathering was round the table,
where hunger and haste were the most
obvious characteristics of the meeting. Till
Gore came, there had been little conversa-
tion. It was not Mariquita's fault that she
had been used neither to see or hear much
that was entertaining. Perhaps the facility
of being amused is an acquired taste; and
even so, the faculty of humor is almost of
necessity dormant where scarcely anything
offers for it to work or feed upon,
103
CHAPTER XVI.
THE projected visit to Maxwell did
not immediately take place. Don
Joaquin was seldom hasty in action,
having a chronic, habitual esteem for delib-
eration and deliberateness too.
Sarella would have been impatient had
she not been sufficiently unwell to shrink for
the moment from the idea of a very long
ride. For the mere pleasure of riding she
would never have mounted a horse; she
would only ride when there was no other
means of arriving at some object or place
not otherwise attainable.
Gore, however, was again absent on the
second Saturday after his first visit to Max-
well. And on this occasion his place was
vacant at breakfast. Nor did he return
till Monday afternoon.
On that afternoon Mariquita had walked
out some distance across the prairie. Not in
the direction of the Maxwell trail, but quite
104
MARIQUITA
in the opposite direction. Her way brought
her to what they called Saul Bluff a very
low, broken ridge, sparsely overgrown with
small rather shabby trees. It would scarcely
have hidden the chimneys of a cottage had
there been any cottage on its farther side;
but there was none anywhere near it. For
many miles there was no building in any
direction, except "Don Jo's," as, to its
owner's annoyance, his homestead was
called.
When Mariquita had reached the top of
the bluff she took advantage of the slight
elevation on which she stood, to look round
upon the great spread of country stretching
to the low horizon on every side. It was,
like most days here, a day of wind and sun.
The air was utterly pure and scentless; the
scent was not fir-scent, and the scattered,
windy trees gave no smell. She saw a chip-
munk and laughed, as the sight of that queer
little creature, and its odd mixture of shy-
ness and effrontery always made her laugh.
It was even singularly clear, and the foot-
hills of the Rockies were just visible. The
trail, which ran over the bluff a little to her
105
MARIQUITA
left, was full in sight below her, but so little
used as to be slight enough. A mile farther
on it crossed the river, and was too faint to
be seen beyond. The river was five miles
behind her as well as a mile in front, for it
made a big loop, north, and then, west-
about, southward.
She sat down and for a long time was rapt
in her own thoughts, which were not, at first,
of any human person. Perhaps she would
not herself have said that she was praying.
But all prayer does not consist in begging
favors even for others. Its essence does not
lie in request, but in the lifting of self, heart
and mind, to God. The love of a child to
its father need not necessarily find its sole
exercise and expression in demand. Her
thought and love flew up to her Father and
rested, immeasurably happy. The real joys
of her life were in that presence. The sense
of His love, not merely for herself, was the
higher bliss it gave her: not merely for her-
self, I say, for it spread as wide as all
humanity, and her own share in it was as
little as a star in the milky way, in the whole
glory, what it is for all the saints in heaven
1 06
MARIQUITA
and on earth, for all sinners, for His great
Mother, and, most immeasurable of all, the
infinite perfection of His love for Himself,
of Father and Son for the Holy Spirit, of
Son and Spirit for the Eternal Father, of
Spirit and Father for the Son. This
stretched far beyond the reach of her
vision, but she looked as far as her human
sight could reach, as one looks on that much
of the mystic ocean that eye can hold. Not
separable from this joy in the Divine Love
was her joy in the Divine Beauty, of which
all created beauty sang, whether it were that
of the smallest flower or that of Christ's
Mother herself. The wind's clean breath
whispered of it; the vast loveliness of the
enormous dome above her, and the limitless
expanse of not less lovely earth on which
that dome rested, witnessed to the Infinite
Beauty that had imagined and made them.
But sooner or later Mariquita must share,
for in that the silent tenderness of her nature
showed itself: she could not be content to
have her great happiness to herself, to enjoy
alone. So, presently, in her prayer she came,
as always, to gathering round her all whom
107
MARIQUITA
she knew and all whom she did not know.
As she would have wished them to think in
their prayer of her, so must she have them
also in the Divine Presence with her, lift
their names up to God, even their names
which, unknown to her, He knew as well
as He knew her own.
Her living father and her dead mother,
the old school-friends and the nuns, the old
priest at Loretto, and a certain crooked old
gardener that had been there (crooked in
body, in face, and in temper), Sarella, and
Mr. Gore, and all the cowboys all these
Mariquita gathered into the loving arms of
her memory, and presented them at their
Father's feet. Her way in this was her own
way, and unlike perhaps that of others. She
had no idea of bringing them to God's
memory, as if His tenderness needed any
reminder from her, for always she heard
Him saying: "Can you teach Me pity and
love?" She did not think it depended on
her that good should come to them from
Him. Were she to be lazy or forgetful, He
would never let them suffer through her
neglect. They were immeasurably more
1 08
MARIQUITA
His than they could be hers. But she could
not be at His feet and not in her loving mind
see them there beside her, and she knew He
chose that at His feet she should not forget
them. She could not dictate to Him what
He was to give them, in what fashion He
should bless and help them. He knew ex-
actly. Her surmises must be ignorant.
Therefore Mariquita's prayer was more
wordless than common, less phrased; but its
intensity was more uncommon. Nor could
it be limited to those a handful out of all
His children whom she knew or had ever
known. There were all the rest every-
where: those who knew how to serve Him,
and were doing it, as she had never learned
to serve; those who had never heard His
name, and those who knew it but shrank
from it as that of an angry observer; those
most hapless ones who lived by disobeying
Him, even by dragging others down into
the slough of disobedience; the whole
world's sick, body-sick and soul-sick; those
who here are mad, and will find reason only
in heaven; the whole world's sorrowful
ones, the luckless, those gripped in the hard
109
MARIQUITA
clutch of penury, or the sordid clutch of
debt; the blind whose first experience of
beauty will be perfect beauty, the foully
diseased, the deformed, the deaf and dumb
whose first speech will be their joining in
the songs of heaven, their first hearing that
of the music of heaven ... all these, and
many, many others she must bring about
her, or her gladness in God's nearness would
be selfishness. That nearness! she felt Him
much nearer than was her own raiment,
nearer than was her own flesh,
no
CHAPTER XVII.
IT was long after Mariquita had come
to her place upon the bluff, that the
sound of a horse cantering towards it
made her rise and go to the farther west-
ward edge of the bluff to look. The horse-
man was quite near, below her. It was Gore,
and he saw her at the same moment in
which she saw him. He lifted his big,
wide-brimmed hat from his head and waved
it. It would never have even occurred to
her to be guilty of the churlishness of
turning away to go homeward. Her
thoughts, almost the only thing of her own
she had ever had, she was always ready to
lay aside for courtesy.
He had dismounted, and was leading his
horse up the rather steep slope. She stood
waiting for him, a light rather than a smile
upon her noble face, a light like the glow
of a far horizon. . . .
in
MARIQUITA
"I thought," she said, when he had come
up, "that you had gone to Maxwell."
"No, I went to Denver this time," he
told her, "beyond Denver a little. Where
do you think I heard Mass yesterday this
morning again, too? for both of us, since
you could not come."
"Not at Loretto!"
But she knew it was at Loretto. His
smile told her.
"Yes, at Loretto. It was the same to me
which place I went to. No, not the same,
for I wanted to see the place where you
had been a little girl, so that I could come
back and bring you word of it."
"Ah, how kind you are!" she said, with
a sort of wonder of gratefulness shining on
her.
("She is far more beautiful than I ever
knew," he thought.)
"Not kind at all," Gore protested. "Just
to please myself! There's no great kindness
in that except to myself."
"Oh, yes! for you knew 'how it would
please me. It was wonderful that you should
be so kind as to think of it."
112
MARIQUITA
"It gave me pleasure anyway. To be in
the place where you had been so happy "
"Ah, but I am always happy," she inter-
rupted. "Though indeed I was happy
there, and sorrowful to leave it. But I did
not leave it quite behind; it came with me."
"I have a great many things to tell you.
They remember you most faithfully. If my
going gave me pleasure, it gave them much
more. You cannot think how much they
made of me for your sake; I stayed there a
long time after Mass yesterday, and they
made me go back in the afternoon I was
there all afternoon. And all the time we
were talking of you."
"Then I think," Mariquita declared,
laughing merrily, "your talk will have been
monotonous."
"Oh, not monotonous at all. Are they
not dear women? They showed me where
you sat in chapel and the different places
where you had sat in classrooms, and in the
refectory, when you first came, as a small
girl of ten, and as you rose in the school."
"I did not rise very high. I was never
one of the clever ones"
MARIQUITA
"They kept that to themselves "
"Oh, yes! They would do that. Nuns
are so charitable they woufd never say
that any of the girls was stupid."
"No, they didn't hint that in the least.
Sister Gabriel showed me a drawing of
yours."
"What was it?"
"She said it was the Grand Canal at
Venice. I have never been there "
"Nor I. But I remember doing it. The
water wouldn't come flat. It looked like a
blue road running up-hill. Sister Gabriel
was very kind, very kind indeed. She used
to have hay-fever."
"So she has now. She listened for more
than half-an-hour while I told her about
you."
"Mr. Gore, I think you will have been
inventing things to tell her," Mariquita pro-
tested, laughing again. She kept laughing,
for happiness and pleasure.
"Oh, no! On the contrary, I kept for-
getting things. Afterwards I remembered
some of them, and told her what I had left
out. Some I only remembered when it was
114
MARIQUITA
too late, after I had come away. Sister
Marie Madeleine I hope you remember
her too she asked hundreds of questions
about you."
"Oh, yes, of course I remember her. She
taught me French. And I was stupid about
it. . . ."
"She was very anxious to know if you
kept it up. She said you wanted only prac-
tice and vocabulary."
"And idiom, and grammar, and pronun-
ciation," Mariquita insisted, laughing very
cheerfully. "Did you tell her there was no
one to keep it up with?"
He told her of many others of the nuns
he had evidently taken trouble to bring her
word of them all. And he had asked for
news of the girls sihe had known best, and
brought her news of them also. Several
were married, two had entered Holy Re-
ligion.
"Sylvia Markham," he said, "you remem-
ber her? She has come back to Loretto to
be a nun. She is a novice; she was clothed
at Easter. Sister Mary Scholastica sihe is
the younger children call her Sister Elastic."
MARIQUITA
"Oh," cried Mariquita, with her happy
laugh," how funny it is to hear you talking
of Sylvia. She was harum-scarum. What
a noise she used to make, too! How pretty
she was!"
"Sister Elastic is just as pretty. She sent
fifty messages to you. But Nellie Hurst
you remember her?"
"Certainly I do. She was champion at
baseball. And she acted better than any-
body. Oh, and she edited the Magazine,
and she kept us all laughing. She was
funny! Geraldine Barnes had a quinsy and
it nearly choked her, but Nellie Hurst made
her laugh so much that it burst, and she
was soon well again. . . ."
"Well, and where do you think she is
now?"
"Where?" Mariquita asked almost breath-
lessly.
"In California. At Santa Clara, near
San Jose. She is a Carmelite."
"A Carmelite! And she used to say she
would write plays (She did write several
that were acted at Loretto) and act them
herself on the stage, I mean."
116
MARIQUITA
It took Gore a long time to tell all his
budget of news; he had hardly finished
before they reached the homestead, towards
which the sinking sun had long warned
them to be moving. And he had presents
for her, a rosary ("brought by Mother
General from Rome and blessed by the
Pope,") a prayerbook, a lovely Agnus Dei
covered with White satin and beautifully
embroidered, scapulars, a little bottle of
Lourdes water, another of ordinary holy
water, and a little hanging stoup to put some
of it in, also a statue of Our Lady, and a
small framed print of the Holy House of
Loretto.
Mariquita had never owned so many
things in her life.
"Oh, dear!" she said. "And I had been
long thinking that I was quite forgotten
there; I am ashamed. And you how to
thank you!"
"But you have been thanking me all the
time," he said, "ever since I told you where
I had been. Every time you laughed you
thanked me."
They met Ben Sturt, who was lounging
117
MARIQUITA
about by the gate in the homestead fence;
he had never seen Mariquita with just that
light of happiness upon her.
"Here," he said to Gore, "let me take the
horse; I'll see to him."
He knew that Mariquita would not come
to the stables, and he wanted Gore to be
free to stay with her to the last moment.
As he led the horse away he thought to
himself: "It has really begun at last;" and
he loyally wished his friend good luck.
Within a yard or two of the door they
met Don Joaquin.
"Father," she said at once, "Mr. Gore
didn't go to Maxwell this time. He went
all the way to Denver to Loretto. And
see what a lot of presents he has brought
me from them!"
Gore thought she looked adorable as, like
a child unused to gifts, she showed her little
treasures to the rather grim old prairie dog.
He looked less grim than usual. It suited
him that she should be so pleased.
"Well!" he said, "you're stocked now.
Mr. Gore had a long ride to fetch them."
118
MARIQUITA
"Oh, yesl Did you ever hear of any-
body being so kind?"
Her father noted shrewdly the new
expression of grateful pleasure on her face.
It seemed to him that Gore was not so in-
competent as he had been supposing, to
carry on his campaign. Sarella came out
and joined them. "What a cunning little
pin-cushion!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it just
sweet?" The Agnus Dei was almost the
only one of Mariquita's new treasures to
which she could assign a use.
"Oh, and the necklace! Garnets relieved
by those crystal blobs are just the very
fashion."
"It is a rosary," Don Joaquin explained
in a rather stately tone. It made him uneasy
it must be unlucky to hear these frivol-
ous eulogies applied to "holy objects" with
which personally he had never had the
familiarity that diminishes awe.
Mariquita had plenty to do indoors and
did not linger. Gore went in also to wash
and tidy himself after his immensely long
ride.
Sarella, who of course knew long before
119
MARIQUITA
this where Mariquita had received her edu-
cation, and had been told whence these
pious gifts came, smiled as she turned to
Don Joaquin.
"So Gore rode all the way to Denver this
time," she remarked.
"It is beyond Denver. Mariquita was
pleased to hear news of her old friends."
"Oh, I daresay. Gore is not such a fool
as he looks."
"I am not thinking that he looks a fool at
all," said Don Joaquin, more stately than
ever.
("How Spanish!" thought Sarella, "I
suppose they're born solemn.")
"Indeed," she cheerfully agreed, "nor do
I. He wouldn't be so handsome if he looked
silly. He's all sense. And he knows his
road, short cuts and all."
Don Joaquin disliked her mention of
Gore's good looks, as she intended. She
had no idea of being snubbed by her elderly
suitor.
"Mariquita," he laid down, "will think
more of his good sense than of his appear-
120
MARIQUITA
ance. I have not brought her up to consider
a gentleman's looks."
Sarella laughed; she was not an easy
person to "down."
"But you didn't bring me up," she said,
"and I can tell you that you might have
been as wise as Solomon and it wouldn't
have mattered to me if you had been ugly.
I'd rather look than listen any day; and I
like to have something worth looking at."
Her very pretty eyes were turned full on
her mature admirer's face, and he did not
dislike their flattery. An elderly man who
has been very handsome is not often dis-
pleased at being told he is worth looking at
still.
"So do I, Sarellita," he responded, telling
himself (and her) how much pleasure there
was in looking at her.
Stately he could not help being, but his
manner had now no stiffness; and in the
double diminutive of her name there was
almost a tenderness, a nearer approach to
tenderness than she could understand. She
could understand, however, that he was
more lover-like than he had ever been.
121
MARIQUITA
A slight flush of satisfaction (that he took
for maiden shyness) was on her face, as she
looked up under her half-drooped eyelids.
"Perhaps," he said in much lower tones
than he usually employed, "perhaps Mr.
Gore knows what you call his road better
than I. But he does not know better the
goal he wants to reach."
("Say!" Sarella asked herself, "what's
coming?")
Two of the cowboys were coming had
come in fact. They appeared at that
moment round the corner of the house,
ready for supper.
"So," one of them said, with rather loud
irritation, evidently concluding a story, "my
dad married her, and I have a step-ma
younger than myself "
122
CHAPTER XVIII.
EVERYONE on the range, from its
owner down to old Jack, considered
that Gore made much more way after
his trip to Denver. Mariquita, it was de-
cided, had, as it were, awakened to him. It
was believed that she and he saw more of
each other, and that she liked his company.
Sarella thought things were going so well
that they had much better be left to them-
selves, and this view she strongly impressed
upon Don Joaquin. He had gradually come
to hold a higher opinion of her sense ; at first
he had been attracted entirely by her beauty.
Her aunt had not been remarkable for
intelligence, and he had not thought the
niece could be expected to be wiser than
her departed elder.
Sarella, on the other hand, did not think
her admirer quite so sensible as he really
was. That he was shrewd and successful in
business, she knew, but was the less im-
123
MARIQUITA
pressed that his methods had been slow and
unhurried. To her eastern ideas there was
nothing imposing (though extremely com-
fortable) in a moderate wealth accumulated
by thirty years of patient work and stingy
expenditure. But she was sure he did not
in the least understand his own daughter,
in whom she (who did not understand her
any better than she would have understood
Dante's Divina Gommedia) saw nothing at
all difficult to understand. The truth was
that Don Joaquin had never understood any
woman; without imagination, he could
understand no sex but his own and his
experience of women was of the narrowest.
Nevertheless, he was nearer to a sort of
rough, nebulous perception of his daughter
than was Sarella herself.
His saying that Mariquita would not
"consider" Gore's good looks, a remark that
Sarella thought merely ridiculous, was an
illustration of this. In his explicit mind, in
his conscious attitude towards Mariquita, he
assumed that it was her business and duty to
respect him. He was her parent, so placed
by God, and he had a great and sincere
124
MARIQUITA
reverence for such Divine appointments as
placed himself in a condition of superiority.
(Insubordination or insolence in the cow-
boys would have gravely and honestly scan-
dalized him). All the same, in an inner
mind that he never consulted, and whose in-
struction he was far from seeking, he knew
that his daughter was a higher creature than
himself; all he knew that he knew was that
a young girl was necessarily more innocent
and pure than an elderly man could be (he
himself was no profligate) ; that in fact all
women were more religious than men, and
that it behooved them to be so; nature made
it easier for them.
He had after deliberate consideration
decided that it would be convenient and
suitable that his daughter should marry
Gore; the young man, he was sure, wished
it, and, while the circumstances in which
she was placed held little promise of a wide
choice of husbands for her, he would, in
Don Joaquin's opinion, make a quite suit-
able husband. To do him justice, he would
never have manoeuvred to bring Gore into
a marriage with Mariquita, had he ap-
125
MARIQUITA
peared indifferent to the girl, or had he
seemed in any way unfit.
But, though Don Joaquin had reached the
point of intending the marriage, he saw no
occasion for much love-making, and none
for Mariquita's falling in love with the
young man's handsome face and fine figure.
Her business was to learn that her father
approved the young man as a suitor, and to
recognize that that approval stamped him
as suitable. That Mariquita would not sud-
denly learn this lesson, Sarella had partly
convinced him ; but he did not think there
would now be any suddenness in the matter.
He would have spoken with authoritative
plainness to her now, without further de-
lay; but there was a difficulty Gore had
not spoken to him.
Don Joaquin thought it was about time
he did so.
"You think," he remarked when they
were alone together over the fire, "that you
shall buy Elaine's?"
Now Gore would certainly not buy a
range so near Don Joaquin's if he should
fail to secure a mistress for it in Don
126
MARIQUITA
Joaquin's daughter. And he was by no
means inclined to take success with her for
granted. He was beginning to hope that
there was a chance of success that was all.
"It is worth the money," he answered;
"and I have the money. But I have not
absolutely decided to settle down to this way
of life at all."
"I thought you had."
"Well, no. It must depend on what does
not depend upon myself."
Don Joaquin found this enigmatical,
which Gore might or might not have in-
tended that he should. Though wholly
uncertain how Mariquita might regard him
when she came to understand that he wished
for more than friendship, he was by this
time quite aware that her father approved;
and he was particularly anxious that she
should not be "bothered."
Don Joaquin diplomatically hinted that
Elaine might close with some other offer.
"There is no other offer. He told me so
quite straightforwardly. I have the refusal.
If he does get another offer, and I have not
decided, he is of course quite free to accept
127
MARIQUITA
it. He does not want to hurry me ; I expect
he knows that if I did buy, he would get a
better price from me than from anyone
else."
Gore might very reasonably be tired after
his immensely long ride, and when he went
off to bed Don Joaquin could not feel
aggrieved. But he was hardly pleased by
the idea that the young man intended to
manage his own affairs without discussion
of them, and to keep his own counsel.
128
CHAPTER XIX.
TUST you leave well alone," said
Sarella, a little more didactically
** than Don Joaquin cared for.
"Things are going as well as can be expect-
ed" (and here she laughed a little) ; " they're
moving now."
Don Joaquin urged his opinion that
Mariquita ought to be enlightened as to his
approval of her suitor.
Sarella answered, with plain impatience,
"If you tell her she has a suitor she wont
have one. Don't you pry her eyes open with
your thumb ; let them open of themselves."
Don Joaquin only half understood this
rhetoric, and he seldom liked what he could
not understand.
He adopted a slightly primitive measure
in reprisal
"It isn't," he remarked pregnantly, "as
if the young man were not a Catholic I
129
MARIQUITA
would not allow her to marry him if he
were not."
"No?"
And it was quite clear to Don Joaquin
that he had killed two birds with one stone;
he saw that Sarella was both interested and
impressed.
"Catholics should marry Catholics," he
declared with decision.
"You didn't think so always," Sarella
observed, smiling.
"If I forgot it, I suffered for it," her
elderly admirer retorted.
Sarella was puzzled. She naturally had
not the remotest suspicion that he had felt
his wife's early death as a reprisal on the
part of Heaven. She knew little of her
aunt, and less of that aunt's married life.
Had there been quarrels about religion?
"Well, I daresay you may be right," she
said gravely. "Two religions in one house
may lead to awkwardness."
"Yes. That is so," he agreed, with a com-
pleteness of conviction that considerably
enlightened her.
"And after all," she went on, smiling with
130
MARIQUITA
great sweetness, "they're only two branches
of the same religion."
This was her way of hinting that the little
bird he had married would have been wise
to hop from her own religious twig to his.
This suggestion, however, Don Joaquin
utterly repudiated.
"The same religion!" he said, with an
energy that almost made Sarella jump.
"The Catholic Church and heresy all one
religion! Black and white the same color!"
Sarella was now convinced that he and
his wife had fought on the subject. On
such matters she was quite resolved there
should be no fighting in her case; concern-
ing expenditure it might be necessary to
fight. But Sarella was an easy person who
had no love for needless warfare, and she
made up her mind at once.
"I understand, now you put it that way,"
she said amiably, "you're right again. Both
can't be right, and the husband is the head
of the wife."
Don Joaquin accepted this theory whole-
heartedly, and nodded approvingly.
MARIQUITA
"How," he said, "can a Protestant mother
bring up her Catfholic son?"
Sarella laughed inwardly. So he had
quite arranged the sex of his future family.
"But," she said with a remarkably swift
riposte, "if Catholics should not marry
Protestants, they have no business to make
love to them. Have they?"
Her Catholic admirer looked a little silly,
and she swore to herself that he was
blushing.
"Because," she continued, entirely with-
out blushing, "a Catholic gentleman made
love to me once "
"Perhaps," suggested Don Joaquin, re-
covering himself "he hoped you would be-
come a Catholic, if you accepted him."
"I daresay," Sarella agreed very cheer-
fully.
"But you evidently did not accept him."
"As to that," she explained frankly, "he
did not go quite so far as asking me to marry
him."
"He drew back!"
"Not exactly. He was interrupted."
132
MARIQUITA
"But didn't he resume the subject?"
Sarella laughed.
"I'd rather not answer that question," she
answered; "you're asking quite a few ques-
tions, aren't you?"
"I want to ask another. Did you like that
Catholic gentleman well enough to share
all he had, his religion, his name, and his
home?"
Don Joaquin was not laughing, on the
contrary, he was eagerly serious, and Sarella
laughed no more.
"He never did ask me to Share them," she
replied with a self-possession that her
elderly lover admired greatly.
"But he does. He is asking you. Sarella,
will you share my religion, and my name,
my home, and all that I have?"
Even now she was amused inwardly, not
all caused by love. She noted, and was en-
tertained by noting, how he put first among
things she was to share, his religion
because he was not so sure of her willing-
ness to share that as of her readiness to
share his name and his goods, and meant
to be sure, as she now quite understood. It
133
MARIQUITA
did not make her respect him less. She had
the sense to know that he would not make
a worse husband for caring enough for his
religion to make a condition of it, and she
was grateful for the form in which he put
the condition. He spared her the brutality
of, "I will marry you if you will turn
Catholic to marry me, but I won't if you
refuse to do that."
She smiled again, but not lightly. "I
think," she said, "you will need some one
when Mariquita goes away to a home of her
own. And I think I could make you com-
fortable and happy. I will try, anyway.
And it would never make you happy and
comfortable if we were of different re-
ligions. If my husband's is good enough for
him, it must be good enough for me."
Poor Sarella! She was quite homeless,
and quite penniless. She had not come here
with any idea of finding a husband in this
elderly Spaniard, but she could think of
him as a husband, with no repugnance and
with some satisfaction. He was respectable
and trustworthy; she believed him to be as
fond of her as it was in his nature to be
134
MARIQUITA
fond of anybody. He had prudence and
good sense. And his admiration pleased
her; her own sense told her that she would
get in marrying him as much as she could
expect.
"Shall you tell Mariquita, or shall I?"
she inquired before they parted.
"I will tell her. I am her father," he
replied.
"Then, do not say anything about her
moving off to a home of her own "
"Why not?" he asked with some obstinacy.
For in truth he had thought the opportunity
would be a good one for "breaking ground."
"Because she will think we want to get
rid of her; or she will think 7 do. Tell her,
instead, that I will do my best to make her
happy and comfortable. If I were you, I
should tell her you count on our marriage
making it pleasanter for her here."
135
CHAPTER XX.
WHEN her father informed her of
his intended marriage, Mariquita
was much more taken aback than
he had foreseen. He had supposed she
must have observed more or less what
was coming,
"Marry Sarella, father!" she exclaimed,
too thoroughly astonished to weigh her
words, "but you are her uncle!"
Don Joaquin, who was pale enough
ordinarily, reddened angrily.
"I am no relation whatever to her," he
protested fiercely. "How dare you accuse
your father of wishing to marry his own
niece? How dare you insult Sarella by
supposing she would marry her uncle?"
It was terrible to Mariquita to see her
father so furious. He had never been soft
or tender to her, but he had hardly ever
shown any anger towards her, and now he
looked at her as if he disliked her.
136
MARIQUITA
It did astonish her that Sarella should be
willing to marry her uncle. Sarella had
indeed, as Don Joaquin had not, thought of
the difficulty; but she saw that there ap-
peared to be none to him ; no doubt, he knew
what was the marriage-law among Catho-
lics, and perhaps that was why he was so
insistent as to her being one.
"I know/' Mariquita said gently, "that
there is no blood relationship between her
and you. She is my first cousin, but she is
only your niece by marriage. I do not even
know what the Church lays down."
Her father was still angry with her, but
he was startled as well. He did not know
any better than herself What the Church
laid down. He did know that between him
and Sarella there was no real relationship
in the law of nature there was nothing to
bar their marriage, and he had acted in
perfect good faith. But he did not intend
to break the Church's law again.
"If you are ignorant of the Church's
law," he said severely, "you should not talk
as if you knew it."
137
MARIQUITA
She knew she had not so talked, but she
made no attempt to excuse herself.
"It is," she said quietly, "quite easy to
find out. The priest at Maxwell would tell
you immediately."
She saw that her father, though still
frowning heavily, was not entirely disre-
gardful of her suggestion.
"Father," she went on in a low gentle
tone, "I beg your pardon if, being alto-
gether surprised, I spoke suddenly, and
seemed disrespectful."
"You were very disrespectful," he said,
with stiff resentment.
Mariquita's large grave eyes were full of
tears, but he did not notice them, and would
have been unmoved if he had seen them.
It was difficult for her to keep them from
overflowing, and more difficult to go on
with what she wished to say.
"You know," she said, "that there are
things which the Church does not allow
except upon conditions, but does allow on
conditions "
"What things?"
138
MARIQUITA
"For instance, marriage with a person
who is not a Catholic "
Don Joaquin received a sudden illumina-
tion. Yes! With a dispensation that would
have been dutiful which he had done un-
dutifully without one.
"You think a dispensation can be obtained
in in this case."
"Father," she answered almost in a
whisper, "I am quite ignorant about it."
He had severely reprimanded her for
speaking, being ignorant. Now he wanted
encouragement and ordered her to speak.
"But say what you think," he said
dictatorially.
"As there is no real relationship," she
answered, courageously enough after her
former snubbing, "if such a marriage is for-
bidden" (he scowled blackly, but she went
on), "it cannot be so by the law of God, but
by the law of the Church. She cannot give
anyone permission to disregard God's law,
but she can, I suppose, make exception to
her own law. That is what we call a dis-
pensation. God does not forbid the use of
meat on certain days, but she does. If God
139
MARIQUITA
forbade it she could never give leave for it;
but she often gives leave not only to a cer-
tain person, but to a whole diocese, or a
whole country even, for temporary reasons
what we call a dispensation."
Don Joaquin had listened carefully. He
was much more ignorant of ecclesiastical
matters than his daughter. He had never
occupied himself with considering the
reasons behind ecclesiastical regulations,
and much that he 'heard now came like en-
tirely new knowledge. But 'he was Spaniard
enough to understand logic very readily,
and he did understand Mariquita.
"So," he queried eagerly, "you think that
even if such a marriage is against regula-
tion" (he would not say "forbidden"),
"there might be a dispensation?"
"I do not see why there should not."
"Of course, there is no reason," he said
loftily, adding with ungracious ingratitude,
"and it was extremely out of place for you
to look shocked when I told you of my pur-
pose."
Mariquita accepted this further reproof
meekly. Don Joaquin was only asserting
140
MARIQUITA
his dignity, that had lain a little in abeyance
While he was listening to her explanations.
"I shall have to be away all to-morrow,"
he said, "on business. I do not wish you to
say anything to Sarella till I give you
permission."
"Of course not."
Don Joaquin was not addicted to telling
fibs except business ones; in selling a horse
he regarded them as merely the floral
ornaments of a bargain, which would have
an almost indecent nakedness without them.
But on this occasion he stooped to a mod-
erate prevarication.
"Sarella," he confidentially informed that
lady, "I shall be up before sunrise and away
the whole of to-morrow. Sometime the day
after I shall have a good chance of telling
Mariquita. Don't you hint anything to her
meanwhile."
"Not I," Sarella promised.
("A hitch somewhere," she thought, feel-
ing pretty sure that he had spoken to Mari-
quita already.)
When Don Joaquin, after his return from
Maxwell, spoke to Mariquita again, he once
141
MARIQUITA
more condescended to some half-truthful-
ness necessary, as he considered, to that
great principle of diplomacy the balance
of power. A full and plain explanation of
the exact position would, he thought, unduly
exalt his daughter's wisdom and foresight
at the expense of his own.
"The priest," he informed her, "will, of
course, be very pleased to marry Sarella and
myself when we are ready. That will not
be until she ; has been instructed and bap-
tized. It will not be for a month or two."
Mariquita offered her respectful con-
gratulations both on Sarella's willingness to
become a Catholic, and on the marriage
itself. She was little given to asking ques-
tions, and was quite aware that her father
had no wish to answer any in the present
instance.
Neither did he tell Sarella that a dispen-
sation would be necessary; still less, that the
priest believed the dispensation would have
to be sought, through the Bishop, of course,
from the Papal Delegate, and professed
himself even uncertain whether the Papal
Delegate 'himself might not refer to Rome
142
MARIQUITA
before granting it, though he (the priest)
thought it more probable that His Excel-
lency would grant the dispensation without
such reference.
Don Joaquin merely gave 'Sarella to
understand that their marriage would follow
her reception into the Church, and that the
necessary instruction previous to that recep-
tion would take some time.
CHAPTER XXI.
AS the marriage could not take place
without delay, Don Joaquin did not
wish it to be unreservedly an-
nounced; the general inhabitants of the
range might guess what they chose, but they
were not at present to be informed.
"Mariquita may tell Gore," he explained
to Sarella, "that is a family matter."
"And I am sure She will not tell him
unless you order her to," said Sarella; "she
does not think of him in that light."
"What light?" demanded Don Joaquin
irritably.
"As one of the family," Sarella replied,
without any irritation at all. Her placidity
of temper was likely to be one of her most
convenient endowments.
"I shall give her to understand," said Don
Joaquin, "that there is no restriction on her
informing Mr. Gore."
144
MARIQUITA
Sarella shrugged her pretty shoulders and
made no comment.
Mariquita took her father's intimation as
an order and obeyed, though surprised that
he should not, if he desired Mr. Gore to
know of his approaching marriage, tell him
himself. Possibly, she thought, her father
was a little shy about such a subject.
Mr. Gore received her announcement
quite coolly, without any manifestation of
surprise. It had not, as Don Joaquin had
hoped it might, the least effect of hurrying
his own steps.
"Am I," he inquired, "supposed to show
that I have been told?"
"Oh, I think so."
So that night when they were alone, after
the others had gone to their rooms, Gore
congratulated his host.
"Thank you! You see," said Don
Joaquin, assuming a tone of pathos that sat
most queerly on him, "as time goes on, I
should be very lonely."
He shook his head sadly, and Gore en-
deavored to look duly sympathetic.
"Sarella," the older man proceeded,
145
MARIQUITA
"could not stop here if she were not my
wife after Mariquita had left us."
Gore, who perfectly understood Mari-
quita's father and his diplomacy, would not
indulge him by asking if his daughter were,
then, likely to leave him.
So Don Joaquin sighed and had to go on.
"Yes! It would be very lonely for me,
dependent as I am for society on Mari-
quita."
Here Gore, with some inward amusement,
could not refrain from accusing his possible
father-in-law of some hypocrisy; for he was
sure the elderly gentleman would miss his
daughter as little as any father could miss
his child.
"Certainly," he said aloud, "it is hard to
think how the range would get on without
her."
No doubt, her absence would be hard to
fill in the matter of usefulness, and Gore
was inclined to doubt whether Sarella
would even wish to fill it. He was pretty
sure that that young woman would refuse
to work as her cousin had worked.
"It must get on without her," Don
146
MARIQUITA
Joaquin agreed, not without doubt, "when
her time comes for moving to a home of
her own."
Still Gore refused to "rise."
"We must be prepared for that," Mari-
quita's father went on, refilling his pipe.
"She is grown up. It is natural she should
be thinking of her own future "
Gore suddenly felt angry with him, in-
stead of being merely amused. To him it
appeared a profanation of the very idea of
Mariquita, to speak of her as indulging in
surmises and calculations concerning her
own matrimonial chances.
"It would not," he said, "be unnatural-
hut I am sure her mind is given to no such
thoughts."
Don Joaquin slightly elevated his eye-
brows.
"I do not know," he said coldly, "how
you can answer for what her mind is given
to. I, at any rate, must have such thoughts
on 'her account. I am not English. English
parents may, perhaps, leave all such things
to chance. We, of my people, are not so.
To us it seems the most important of his
147
MARIQUITA
duties for a father to trust to no chances,
but arrange and provide for his daughter's
settlement in life."
Here the old fellow paused, and having
shot his bolt, pretended it had been a mere
parenthesis in answer to an implied
criticism.
"But," he continued, "I have wandered
from what I was really explaining. I was
telling that soon I should, in the natural
course of things, be left here alone, as re-
gards home companionship, unless I myself
tried to find a mate, so I tried and I have
succeeded."
Here he bowed with great majesty and
some complacence, as if he might have
added, "Though you, in your raw youthful-
ness and conceit, may have thought me too
old a suitor to win a lovely bride."
Gore responded by the heartiest felicita-
tions. "Sir," ( he added after a brief pause,
"since it seems to me that you wish it, I will
explain my own position. I can well afford
to marry. And I would wish very much to
marry. But there is only one lady whom I
have ever met, whom I have now, or ever,
148
MARIQUITA
felt that I would greatly desire to win for
my wife."
So far Don Joaquin had listened with an
absolutely expressionless countenance of
polite attention, though he had never been
more interested.
"The lady," Gore continued, "is your
daughter."
(Here that lady's father relaxed the
aloofness of his manner, and permitted him-
self a look of benign, though not eager,
approval.)
"It may be," the young man went on,
"that you have perceived my wishes. . . ."
(Don Joaquin would express neither
negation nor assent.)
"Anyway, you know them now. But your
daughter does not know them. To thrust
the knowledge of them prematurely upon
her would, I am sure, make the chance of
her responding to them very much less
hopeful. Therefore I have been slow and
cautious in endeavoring to gain even a spe-
cial footing of friendship with her; I have,
lately, gained a little. I cannot flatter my-
self that it is more than a little; between
149
MARIQUITA
us there is on her side only the mere dawn
of friendship. That being so, I should have
been unwilling to speak to yourself lest it
should seem like assuming that she had any
sort of interest in me beyond what I have
explained. I speak now because you clearly
expect that I should. Well, I have spoken.
But I am so greatly in eager earnest about
this that I ask you plainly to allow me to
endeavor to proceed with what, I think,
you almost resent as a timidity of caution.
It is my only chance."
Don Joaquin did not see that at all. If
he were to inform Mariquita that Mr. Gore
wished to become her husband and he, her
father, wished her to become Mr. Gore's
wife, he could not bring himself to picture
such disobedience as any refusal on her part
would amount to.
"Our way," he said, u is more direct than
your fanciful English way; it regards not a
young girPs fanciful delays, and timid un-
certainty, but her solid welfare, and there-
fore her solid happiness. In reality it gets
over her maiden modesty in the best way
by wise authority. She does not have to tell
150
MARIQUITA
herself baldly, 'I have become in love with
this young man,' but 'My parents have
found this young man worthy to undertake
the charge of my life and my happiness, and
I submit to their experience and wisdom.'
Then duty will teach her love; a safer
teacher than fancy."
"I hope, sir," said Gore, "that you do not
yourself propose that method."
"And if I did?"
"I would, though more earnestly desirous
to win your daughter than I am desirous of
anything in this life, tell you that I refuse
to win her in that way. It never would win
her."
" Win her' ! She is all duty"
"Excuse me! No duty would command
her to become my wife if she could only
do so with repugnance. If you told her it
was her duty I should tell her it was no
such thing."
Don Joaquin was amazed at such crass
stupidity. He flung his open hands upwards
with angry protest. He was even suspicious.
Did the young man really want to marry
his daughter? It was much more evident
MARIQUITA
that he was in earnest now, than it had
been to Don Joaquin that he was in earnest
before.
The elderly half-breed had not the least
idea of blaming his own crude diplomacy;
on the contrary, he had been pluming him-
self on its success. For some time he had
desired to obtain from Gore a definite ex-
pression of his wish to marry Mariquita,
and he had obtained it. That it had been
speedily followed by this further pro-
nouncement, incomprehensible to the girl's
father, was not his fault, but was due
entirely to the Englishman's peculiarities,
peculiarities that to Don Joaquin seemed
perverse and almost suspicious.
"If you were a Spaniard," he said stiffly,
"you would be grateful to me for being
willing to influence my daughter in your
favor."
Gore knew that he must be disturbed, as
it was his rule to speak of himself not as a
Spaniard, but as an American.
"I am grateful to you, sir, for being
willing to let me hope to win your daughter
for my wife most grateful."
152
MARIQUITA
"You do not appear grateful to me for my
willingness to simplify matters."
"They cannot be simplified nor hurried.
If your daughter can be brought to think
favorably of me as one who earnestly desires
to have the great, great honor and privilege
of being the guardian of her life and its
happiness, it must be gradually and by very
gentle approaches. I hope that she already
likes me, but I am sure she does not yet love
me."
"Before she has been asked to be your
wife! Love you! Certainly not. She will
love her husband, for that will be her duty."
Gore did not feel at all like laughing; his
future father-in-law's peculiarities seemed
as perverse to him as his own did to Don
Joaquin. He dreaded their operation; it
seemed only too possible that Don Joaquin
would be led to interference by them, and
such interference he feared extremely; nor
could he endure the idea of Mariquita's
being dragooned by her father.
"If," he declared stoutly, "you thrust
prematurely upon your daughter the idea
of me as her husband, you will make her
153
MARIQUITA
detest the thought -of me, and I never shall
be her husband."
Don Joaquin was offended.
"I am not used to do anything prema-
turely," he said grimly. "And it may be
that I understand my daughter, who is of
my own race, better than you who are not
of her race."
"It may be. But I am not certain that it
is so. Sir, since you have twice alluded to
that question of race, you must not be sur-
prised or displeased if I remind you that
she is as much of my race as of your own.
Half Spanish she is, but half of English
blood."
Don Joaquin was displeased, but all the
same, he did feel that there might be some-
thing in Gore's argument. He had always
thought of Mariquita as Spanish like him-
self ; but he had never been unconscious that
She was unlike himself it might possibly
be by reason of her half-English descent.
"The lady," Gore went on, "whom you
yourself are marrying, would perhaps un-
derstand me better than you appear to do."
This reference to Sarella did not greatly
154
MARIQUITA
conciliate her betrothed. He did not wish
her to be occupied in understanding any
young man. All the same, he was slightly
flattered at Gore's having, apparently, a
confidence in her judgment. Moreover, he
knew that it was so late that this discussion
could not be protracted much longer, and
he was not willing to say anything like an
admission that he had receded (which he
had not) from his own opinion.
"Her judgment," he said, "is good. And
she has a maternal interest in Mariquita. I
will tell her what you have said."
Gore went to 'bed smiling to himself at
the idea of Sarella's maternal interest. She
did not strike him as a motherly young lady.
155
CHAPTER XXII.
SARELLA found considerable enjoy-
ment in the visits to Maxwell necessi-
tated by her period of instruction.
Each instruction was of reasonable length
and left plenty of time for other affairs, and
that time landed Don Joaquin in expenses
he had been far from foreseeing. Sarella
had a fund of mild obstinacy which her
placidity of temper partly veiled. She in-
tended that considerable additions to the
furniture of the homestead should be made,
and she did not intend to get married with-
out some considerable additions to her
wardrobe as well. Her dresses, she assured
Don Joaquin, were all too youthful. "Girl's
clothes" she called them. She insisted on
the necessity of now dressing as a matron.
"Perhaps," she admitted with sweet in-
genuousness, "I have dressed too young.
One gets into a sort of groove. There was
156
MARIQUITA
nothing to remind me that I had passed
beyond the stage of school-girl frocks. But
a married woman, unless she is a silly, must
pull herself up, and adopt a matron's style;
I would rather now dress a bit too old than
too young. You don't want people to be
saying you have married a flapper!"
She got her own way, and Don Joaquin,
had he known anything about it, might have
discovered that matronly garments were
more expensive than a girl's. "A girl,"
Sarella informed Mariquita, "need only be
smart. A matron's dress must be hand-
some."
To do her justice, Sarella tried to con-
vince her lover that Mariquita also should
be provided with new clothes ; but he would
agree only to one new "suit," as he called it,
for 'his daughter to wear at his wedding. He
had no idea of spending his own money on
an extensive outfit "for another man's
wife." That expense would be Gore's.
Even in Sarella's case he woulcl never have
agreed to buy all she wanted had it been
announced at once, but she was far too
astute for any such mistake as that. It ap-
157
MARIQUITA
peared that there must be some delay before
their marriage, and she utilized it by
spreading her gradual demands over as long
a time as she could.
Some of the expense, too, Don Joaquin
managed to reduce by discovering a market
he had hardly thought of till now, for the
furs of animals he had himself shot; some
of these animals were rather uncommon,
some even rare, and he became aware of
their commercial value only when bargain-
ing for their making up into coats or cloaks
for Sarella. His subsequent visits to this
"store" in order to dispose of similar furs
against a reduction in its charges for
Sarella's clothing, he studiously concealed
from her, but Sarella knew all about it.
"Why," she said to herself, really admir-
ing his sharpness, "the old boy is making
a profit on the bargain. He's getting more
for his furs than he's spending."
She was careful not to let him guess that
she knew this; but she promised herself to
"take it out in furniture." And she kept her
promise. It was Sarella's principle that a
person who did not keep promises made to
158
MAKIQUITA
herself would never keep those made to
other people.
"You really must/' she told him, "have
some of those furs made into a handsome
winter jacket for Mariquita. They cost you
nothing, and she must have a winter jacket
The one she has was got at the Convent
and a present, too, I believe. It was hand-
some once and that shows how economical
good clothes are; they last so "
(Don Joaquin thought, "especially eco-
nomical when they are presents.")
" But Mariquita has grown out of it.
She is so tall. A new one made of cloth
from the store would cost more than one for
me, because she is so tall. But those furs
cost you nothing."
She knew he would not say, "No, but I
can sell them."
"Besides," she added, "if you offered
them some more furs at the store they might
take something off the charge of making and
lining. It is often done. I'll ask them
about it if you like."
Don Joaquin did not at all desire her to
do that.
159
MARIQUITA
"No necessity," he said hastily; "Mari-
quita shall have the jacket. I will take the
furs and give the order myself."
"Only be sure to insist that the lining is
silk. They have some silvery gray silk that
would just go with those furs. And Mari-
quita would pay good dressing. Her style
wants it. She's solid, you know."
Mariquita did get the jacket. But it was
not of the fur Sarella had meant her
father knew by that time the value of that
sort of fur. And Sarella knew that she had
made it quite clear which sort she had
asked him to supply. She was amused by
his craftiness, and though a little ashamed
of him, she was readier to forgive his stingi-
ness than if it had been illustrated in a gar-
ment for herself. After all, it was perhaps
as well that Mariquita's should not be so
valuable as her own.
"And married women," she reminded
herself, "do have to dress handsomer than
girls. And Mariquita will never know the
difference."
"I suggested," she told her cousin, "the
same gray fur as mine. But I daresay a
1 60
MARIQUITA
brown fur will suit your coloring better,
and it's younger. Anything gray (in the fur
line) can be worn with mourning, and
nothing's so elderly as mourning."
It was the first present her father had
ever given Mariquita, and she thanked him
with a warmth of gratefulness that ought
to 'have made him ashamed. But Don
Joaquin was not subject to the unpleasant
consciousness of shame. On the contrary,
he thought with less complacence of Mari-
quita's thanks than of the fact that he had
given her a necessary winter garment at a
profit for he had taken the other furs to
the store and received for them a substantial
cash payment over and above the clearing
of the charges for making up and lining the
commoner skins of which the winter jacket
was made.
"I wonder," thought Sarella, "what that
lining is? It looks silky, but I'm sure it
isn't silk. I daresay it's warmer. And after
all, Gore can get it changed for silk when
it's worn out; the fur will outlast two lin-
ings at least. It's not so delicate as mine.
I'm afraid mine'll flatten. I must look to
that."
161
CHAPTER XXIII.
MEANWHILE the instructions did
proceed, and Sarella did not mind
them much. Perhaps she was not
always attending very laboriously she had
a good deal to think of; but she listened
with all due docility, and with quite reason-
able, if not absorbed, interest; and by care-
fully abstaining from asking questions, did
not often betray any misunderstanding of
the nun's explanations, for it was by one
of the nuns that all but the preliminary
instructions were given. Sarella rather
liked her, deciding that she was "a good
sort," and, though neither young nor ex-
tremely attractive, she was "as kind as
kind," and so intensely full of her subject
that Sarella could not help gathering a
higher appreciation of its importance. In
Sarella the earnest expounder of Catholic
doctrine and practice had no bigotry and
162
MARIQUITA
not much prejudice to work against; only a
thick crust of ignorance, and perhaps a
thicker layer of natural indifference. The
little she had heard about the Catholic
Church was from Puritan neighbors in a
very small town of a remote corner of New
England, and if it had made any particular
impression, must have been found unfavor-
able; but Sarella had 'been too little inter-
ested in religion to adopt its rancors, her
whole disposition, easy, self-indulgent and
material, being opposed to rancor as to all
rough, sharp, and uncomfortable things.
Perhaps the nun was hardly likely to
overcome the indifference, and perhaps she
knew it. But she prayed for Sarella much
oftener than she talked to her, and had much
more confidence in what Our Lord Himself
might do for her than in anything that she
could.
"After all," she would urge, "it is more
Your own business than mine. I did not
make her, nor die for her. Master, do Your
own work that I cannot"
Besides, she, who had no belief in chance,
would cheer herself by remembering that
163
MARIQUITA
He had so ordered His patient providence
as to bring the girl to the gate of the
Church, by such ways as she was so far
capable of. He had begun the work; He
would not half do it. He would make it,
the nun trusted, a double work. For in,
half-obstinately, insisting that Sarella must
become a Catholic before he married her,
the old Spaniard, half-heathen by lifelong
habit, had begun to awake to some sort at
least of Catholic feeling, some beginning of
Catholic practice, for now he was occasion-
ally hearing Mass, and that first lethargic
movement of a better spirit in him might,
with God's blessing, would, lead to some-
thing more genuinely spiritual.
The nun attributed those beginnings to
the prayers of the old half-breed's daughter.
As yet she knew her but little, but already,
by the dlscretio spiritum, which is, after
all, perhaps only another name for the clear
instinct in things of grace earned by those
who live by grace, the elderly nun, plain and
simple, recognized in Mariquita one of a
rare, unfettered spirituality.
Sarella had not, at all events consciously,
164
MARIQUITA
to herself, told her instructress much about
her young cousin.
"Oh, Mariquita!" she had said, not ill-
naturedly, "she lives up in the moon."
("Higher up than that, I expect,"
thought Sister Aquinas, gathering the im-
pression that Mariquita was not held of
much account in the family.)
"But she is not an idler?" said the nun.
"Oh, not a bit," Sarella agreed with per-
fectly ungrudging honesty. "An idler! No;
she works a lot harder than she ought;
harder than she would if I had the arrang-
ing of things. Not quite so hard as she
used, though, for I have made her father
get some help, and he will have to get more
if Mariquita leaves us."
Perceiving that the nun did not smile,
but retreated into what Sarella called her
"inside expression," that acute young woman
guessed that she might have conveyed the
idea that her future stepdaughter was to be
sent away on her father's marriage.
"There's always," she explained care-
lessly, "the chance of her marrying. She is
handsome in her own way, and I don't think
MARIQUITA
she need remain long unmarried if she chose
to marry. Not that she ever thinks of it.' 7
("I expect not," thought Sister Aquinas.)
This was about as near to gossip as they
ever got. Sarella, indeed, would have liked
the nun better if she had been "more
chatty." I don't know that Sister Aquinas
really disliked chat so long as it wasn't
gossip, but the truth was, she did not find
the time allowed for each instruction at all
superfluously long, and did not wish to let
it slip away in mere talk,
1 66
CHAPTER XXIV.
IT was only occasionally that Mariquita
accompanied Sarella when the latter
went to the convent for instruction. On
one of those occasions the Loretto Convent
near Denver was mentioned, and Sister
Aquinas said:
"I had a niece there a few years ago
Eleanor Hurst. I wonder if you know
her?"
"Oh, yes! Quite well." Mariquita
answered, with the sort of shining interest
that always made her look suddenly
younger. "A friend of ours brought me
news, lately, that she has become a Car-
melite."
"What is a Carmelite?" Sarella asked.
"A nun of one of the great Contemplative
Orders," Sister Aquinas explained, turning
politely to Sarella. "It is a much rarer
vocation than that of active nuns, like our-
MARIQUITA
selves. Carmelites do not teach school, or
have orphanages, or homes for broken old
men or women, nor nurse the sick, either in
their homes or in hospital."
"Sounds pretty useless," Sarella remarked
carelessly; "what do they do anyway?"
"They are not at all useless," the nun
answered, smiling good-humoredly. "Mar-
ried women are not useless, though they do
not do any of those things either."
"Of course not. But they are married.
They make their husbands comfortable "
The nun could not help taking her own
turn of interrupting, and said with a little
laugh:
"Not quite always, perhaps."
"The good ones do."
"Perhaps not invariably. Some even
pious women are not remarkable for making
their husbands comfortable."
Sarella laughed, and the elderly nun went
on.
"Of course, it is the vocation of married
women to do as you say. And I hope most
do it, that and setting the example of happy
Christian homes. I do not really mean to
1 68
MARIQUITA
judge of the vocation by those who fail to
fulfill it. It is God's vocation for the vast
majority of His daughters. But not for all."
"There aren't husbands enough for all of
us," Sarella, who was "practical" and
slightly statistical, remarked, with the com-
placence of one for whom a husband had
been forthcoming.
"Exactly," agreed the elderly nun,
laughing cheerfully, "so it's a good thing,
you see, that there are other vocations ; ours,
for instance."
"Oh," Sarella protested with hasty polite-
ness, "no one could think people like you
useless. You do so much good."
"So do the Carmelites. Only their way
of it is not quite the same. Would you say
that Shakespeare was useless, or Dante?"
To tell truth, Sarella had never in her life
said anything about either, or thought any-
thing. Nevertheless, she was aware that
they were considered important.
"They did not," the nun said eagerly,
"teach schools, or nurse the sick, or do any
of those things for the sake of which some
people kindly forgive us for being nuns
169
MARIQUITA
not all people, unfortunately. Yet they are
recognized as not having been useless. They
are not useless now, long after they are
dead. Mankind admits its debt to them.
They served, and they serve still. Not with
physical service, like nurses, or doctors, or
cooks, or house-servants. But they contrib-
uted to the quality of the human race. So
have many great men and women who
never wrote a line Joan of Arc, for in-
stance. The contribution of those illustrious
servants was eminent and famous, but many
who have never been famous, who never
have been known, have contributed in a
different degree or fashion to the quality of
mankind: innumerable priests, unknown
perhaps outside their parishes; innumerable
nuns, innumerable wives and mothers; and
a Carmelite nun so contributes, eminently,
immeasurably except by God, though invis-
ibly, and inaudibly. Not only by her pray-
ers, I mean her prayers of intercession,
though again it is only God who can
measure what she does by them. But just
by being what she is, vast, unknown num-
bers of people are brought into the Catholic
170
MARIQUITA
Church not only by her prayers but by her
life. Some read themselves into the true
faith, into any faith ; they are very few in
comparison of those who come to believe.
Some are preached into the Church a few
only, again, compared with the number of
those who do come to her. What brings
most of those who are brought? I believe
it is a certain quality that they have become
aware of in the Catholic Church, that
brings the immense majority. The young
man in the factory, or in the army, in a ship,
or on a ranch anywhere falls into com-
panionship with a Catholic, or with a group
of Catholics; and in him, or them, he
gradually perceives this quality which he
has never perceived elsewhere. It may be
that the Catholics he has come to know are
not perfect at all. The quality is not all of
their own earning; it is partly an inherit-
ance: some of it from their mothers, some
from their sisters, some from their friends;
ever so much of it from the saints, who con-
tributed it to the air of the Church that
Catholics breathe. The Contemplatives are
contributing it every day, and all day long.
171
MARIQUITA
Each, in her case, behind her grille, is for-
ever giving something immeasurable, except
by God, to the transcendent quality of the
Catholic Church. This may be, and mostly
is, unsuspected by almost all her fellow-
creatures; but not unfelt by quite all. A
Carmelite's convent is mostly in a great
city; countless human beings pass its walls.
They cannot help, seeing them, saying to
their own hearts, ( In there, human crea-
tures, like me, are living unlike me. They
have given up everything and for no pos-
sible reward here. Ambition cannot account
for any part of it even. They cannot become
anything great even in their Church, nor
famous; they will die as little known or
regarded as they live. They can win no
popularity. They obtain no applause. They
are called useless for their pains. They are
scolded for doing what they do, though
they would not be scolded if they were mere
old-maids who pampered and indulged only
themselves. The wicked women of this city
are less decried than they. They are
abused, and they have to be content to be
abused, remembering that their Master said
172
MARIQUITA
they must be content to fare no better than
Himself. It is something above this world,
that can only be accounted for by another
world, and such a belief in it as is not
proved by those who may try to grab two
worlds, this one with their right hands, the
next with their left. The life almost all of
us declare impossible here on earth, they
are living.' Such thoughts as these, broken
thoughts, hit full in the face numbers of
passers-by every day, and how many days
are there not in a year in a Carmelite's
own lifetime. They are witnesses to Jesus
Christ, who cannot be explained away. A
chaplain told me that nothing pleased his
soldiers so much as to get him in the midst
of a group of them and say, 'Tell us about
the nuns, Father. Tell us about the Car-
melites and the Poor Clares ' "
"I knew a girl called Clare," Sarella
commented brightly; "she was as poor as a
church mouse, but she married a widower
with no children and a huge fortune. I beg
your pardon but the name reminded me
of her."
Sister Aquinas laughed gently.
173
MARIQUITA
"Well, she was a useful friend to you!"
"Not at all. She never did a -hand's turn
for anyone. I don't know what she would
have done if she hadn't married a rich man,
she was so helpless. But you were saying?"
"Only, that his soldiers loved to hear the
chaplain tell them about the Contemplative
nuns. Nothing interested them more. I am
sure it was not thrown away on them. It
was like showing them a high and lovely
place. I should think no one can look at a
splendid white mountain and not want to be
climbing. That was all."
Would Sarella ever want to climb?
Sister Aquinas did not know, nor do I
know.
Her eagerness had been, perhaps, partly
spurred by other criticism than Sarella's;
Sarella was not the only one who had told
Nelly Hurst's aunt that it was a pity the girl
had "decided on one of the useless Orders."
That every phase of life approved by the
Catholic Church, as the Contemplative
Orders are, must be useful, Sister Aquinas
knew well. And it wounded her to hear her
niece's high choice belittled. She could not
174
MARIQUITA
help knowing that this belittling was simply
a naive confession of materialism, and an
equally naive expression of human selfish-
ness. We approve the vocation of nuns
whose work is for our own bodies; we
cannot easily see the splendor of direct
service of God Himself who has no material
needs of His own. That God's most usual
course of Providence calls us to serve Him
by serving our fellows, we see clearly
enough, because it suits us to see it; but we
are too purblind to perceive that even that
service need not in every case be material
service, and it scandalizes us to remember
that God chooses in some instance to be
served directly, not by the service of any
creature ; because the instances are less com-
mon, we are shocked when asked to admit
that they exist. If Christ were still visibly
on earth, millions would be delighted to
feed Him, but it would annoy almost all of
us to see even a few serving Him by sitting
idle at His feet listening. Hardly any of us
but think Martha was doing more that
afternoon at Bethany than her sister, and it
troubles us that Jesus Christ thought differ-
175
MARIQUITA
ently. It was so easy to sit still and listen
that is why the huge majority of us find it
impossible, and are angry that here and
there a Contemplative nun wants to do it.
Of liberty we prattle in every language;
and most loudly do they scream of it who
are most angry that God takes leave to exist,
and that many of His creatures still refuse
to deny His existence; that many admit His
right to command, and their own obligation
to obey. These liberty-brawlers would be the
first to concede to every woman the "inalien-
able right" to lead a corrupt life, destructive
of society, and the last to allow to a handful
of women out of the world's population the
right to live a life of spotless whiteness at
the immediate feet of the Master they love.
Was Sister Aquinas so carried away as to
be forgetful that Sarella was not the only
auditor? Mariquita had listened too,
176
CHAPTER XXV.
DURING these weeks of Sarella's in-
struction she achieved something
which to her seemed a greater tri-
umph than her -succession of cumulative
triumphs in the matters of trousseau and of
furniture. She persuaded Don Joaquin to
buy a motor-car!
She would not have succeeded in this
attempt but for certain circumstances which
in reality robbed her success of some of its
triumph. In the first place, the machine
was not a new one; in the second, Don
Joaquin took it instead of a debt which he
did not think likely to be paid. Then also
he had arrived at the conclusion that so
many long rides as Sarella's frequent jour-
neys to Maxwell involved, were likely to
prove costly. They took a good deal out of
the horses, even without accidents occurring,
and an accident had nearly occurred which
177
MARIQUITA
would have very largely reduced the value
of one of the best of his horses the one, as
it happened, best fitted for carrying a lady.
Sarella all but let the horse down on a piece
of ragged, stony road: Don Joaquin being
himself at her elbow and watchful, had just
succeeded in averting the accident; but lover
as he was, he was able to see that Sarella
would never be a horse-woman. She dis-
liked riding, and he was not such a tyrant
as to insist on her doing a thing she never
would do well, and had no pleasure in
doing. On the whole, he made up his mind
that it would be more economical to take
this second-hand car in settlement of a bad
debt than continue running frequent risks
of injury to his horses.
The acquisition of the car made it pos-
sible to shorten the period of these journeys
to Maxwell; it did not require a night's rest,
and the trip itself was much more rapidly
accomplished.
The period of Sarella's instruction was
not one of idleness on Gore's part, in refer-
ence to Mariquita. It seemed to him that
he really was making some advance. He
MARIQUITA
saw much more of her than used to be the
case. She was now accustomed to chance
meetings with him, or what she took for
chance meetings, and did not make hasty
escape from them, or treat him during them
with reserve. They were, in fact, friends
and almost confidential friends ; but if Gore
had continued as wise as he had been when
discussing the situation with her father, he
would have been able to see that it did not
amount to more than that; that they were
friends indeed because Mariquita was
wholly free from any suspicion that more
than that could come of it. She had simply
come to a settled opinion that he was nice,
a kind man, immensely pleasanter as a com-
panion than any man she had known before,
a trustworthy friend who could tell her of
much whereof she had been ignorant. She
began in a fashion to know "his people,"
too; and he saw with extreme pleasure that
she was interested in them. That was
natural enough. She knew almost nobody;
as a grown-up woman, had really known
none of her own sex till Sarella came; it
would have been strange if she had not
179
MARIQUITA
heard with interest about women whose
portraits were so affectionately drawn for
her, who, she could easily discern, were
pleasant and refined, cheerful, bright, amus-
ing, and kind, too; cordial, friendly people.
All the same, Gore's talk of his family
did connote a great advance in intimacy
with Mariquita. He seemed to assume that
she might know them herself, and she gath-
ered the notion that when he had bought a
range, some of them wou4d come out
and live with him, so that she said noth-
ing to contradict a possibility that he had
after all only implied. Gore, meanwhile,
with no suspicion of her idea that his sisters
might come out to visit him, and noting
with great satisfaction that she never con-
tradicted his hints and hopes that they might
all meet, attached more importance to it
than he ought. Perhaps he built more hope
on this than on any one thing besides. He
was fully aware that in all their intercourse
there was no breath of flirtation. But he
could not picture Mariquita flirting, and
did not want to picture it. Meanwhile their
intercourse was daily growing to an inti-
180
MARIQUITA
macy, or he took it for such. He did not
sufficiently weigh the fact that of herself
she said little. She was most ready to be
interested in all he told her of himself, his
previous life, his friends; but of her own
real life, which was inward and apart from
the few events of her experience, she did
not speak. This did not strike him as
reserve, for those who show a warm,
friendly interest in others do not seem
reserved.
Gore never startled her by gallantry or
compliments ; his sympathy and admiration
were too respectful for compliment, and a
certain instinct warned him that gallantry
would have perplexed and disconcerted her.
None the less, he believed that he was
making progress, and the course of it was
full of beautiful and happy moments. So
things went on, with, as Gore thought, sure
though not rapid pace. He was too much
in earnest to risk haste, and also too happy
in the present to make blundering clutches
at the future. Then with brutal suddenness
Don Joaquin intervened.
181
CHAPTER XXVI.
HE met his daughter and Gore return-
ing to the homestead, Mariquita's
face bright with friendly interest in
all that Gore had been telling her, and the
young man's certainly not less happy. Don
Joaquin was out of temper; Sarella and he
had had an economic difference and he had
been aware that she had deceived him.
He barely returned Gore's and Mari-
quita's greeting, and his brow was black. It
was not till some time later that he and
Gore found themselves alone together.
Then he said ill-humoredly:
"You and Mariquita were riding this
afternoon a good while, I think."
"It did not seem long to me, as you can
understand," Gore replied smiling, and
anxious to ignore the old fellow's bad
temper.
"Perhaps it does not seem long to you
182
MARIQUITA
since you began to speak of marrying my
daughter."
"I did not begin to speak of it. I should
have preferred to hold my tongue till I
could feel I had some right to speak of it. It
was you, sir, who began."
"And that was a long time ago. Have you
yet made my daughter understand you?"
"I cannot be sure yet."
"But I must be sure. To-morrow I shall
see that she understands."
Gore was aghast.
"I earnestly beg you to abstain from doing
that," he begged, too anxious to prevent Don
Joaquin's interference to risk precipitating it
by showing the anger he felt.
"Perhaps you no longer wish to marry
her. If so, it would be advisable to reduce
your intercourse to common civilities
"Sir," Gore interrupted, "I cannot allow
you to go on putting any case founded on
such an assumption as that of my no longer
wishing to marry your daughter. I wish it
more every day . . ."
The young man had a right to be angry,
and he was angry, and perhaps was not un-
183
MARIQUITA
willing to show it. But it was necessary
that he should for every reason be moderate
in letting his resentment appear. To have
a loud quarrel with a prospective father-
in-law is seldom a measure likely to help
the suitor's wishes.
He in his turn was interrupted.
"Then," said Don Joaquin, "it is time
you told her so."
"I do not think so. I think it's not time,
and that to tell her so now would greatly
injure my chance of success."
"I will answer for your success. I shall
myself speak to her. I shall tell her that
you wish to marry her, and that I have,
some time ago, given my full consent."
Gore was well aware that Don Joaquin
could not "answer for his success." It was
horrible to him to think of Mariquita being
bullied, and he was sure that her father
intended to bully her. Anything would be
better than that. He was intensely earnest
in his wish to succeed; it was that earnest-
ness that made him willing to be patient;
but he was, if possible, even more intensely
determined that the poor girl should not be
184
MARIQUITA
tormented and dragooned by her tyrannical
father. That, he would risk a great deal to
prevent, as far as his own power went.
"I most earnestly beg you not to do that,"
he said in a very low voice.
"But I intend to do it. If you choose to
say that you do not, after all, wish to marry
her, then I will merely suggest that you
should leave us."
"I have just told you the exact
contrary "
"Then, I shall tell Mariquita so to-mor-
row, stating that your proposal meets with
my full consent, and that in view of her
prolonged intimacy with you, her consent is
taken by me for granted. I do take it for
granted."
"I wish I could. But I cannot. Sir, I
still entreat you to abandon this intention of
yours."
"Only on condition that you make the
proposal yourself without any further
delay."
From this decision the obstinate old
father would not recede. The discussion
continued for some time, but he seemed to
MARIQUITA
grow only more fixed in his intention, and
certainly he became more acerbated in
temper. Gore was sure that if he were
allowed to take up the matter with his
daughter, it would be with even more
harshly dictatorial tyranny than had seemed
probable at first.
Finally Gore promised that he would
himself propose to Mariquita in form on
the morrow, Don Joaquin being with diffi-
culty induced to undertake on his side that
he would not "prepare" her for what was
coming. He gave this promise quite as re-
luctantly as Gore gave his. The younger
man dreaded the bad effects of precipitancy;
the elder, who had plenty of self-conceit
behind his dry dignity, relinquished very
unwillingly the advantages he counted upon
from his diplomacy, and the weight of his
authority being known beforehand to be on
the suitor's side. If Gore were really so
uncertain of success, it would be a feather
in the paternal cap to have insured that suc-
cess by his solemn indications of approval.
But he saw that without his promise of
absolute abstention from interference, Gore
1 86
MARIQUITA
would not agree to make his proposal, so
Don Joaquin ungraciously yielded the point
perhaps chiefly because important business
called him away from the morrow's dawn
till late at night.
187
CHAPTER XXVII.
AFTER breakfast next morning Sa-
rella, not quite accidentally, found
herself alone with Gore.
"You gentlemen," she said, "did go to
bed sometime, I suppose. But I thought
you never were going to stop your talk
and to tell you the truth, I wished my bed-
room was farther away, or had a thicker
wall. I go to bed to sleep. You were at it
two hours and twenty minutes."
Gore duly apologized for the postpone-
ment of her sleep, and wondered how thin
the wooden partition might be between her
room and that in which the long discussion
had taken place.
"These partitions of thin boarding are
wretched," she informed him, "especially
as they are only stained. If they were even
papered it would prevent the tobacco-smoke
coming through the cracks where the boards
MARIQUITA
have shrunk." Gore could not help smiling.
"I think," he said, "you want to let me
know that our talk was not quite inaudible."
"No, it wasn't. Not quite. I'll tell you
how much was audible. That you were
talking about Mariquita, and that you were
arguing, and I think you were both angry.
I am sure he was."
"So was I ; though not so loud, I hope."
"Look here, Mr. Gore. You weren't
loud at all. But I knew you were angry.
And so you ought to have been. Why on
earth can't he keep his fingers out of the
pot? You and Mariquita didn't interfere in
his love affair, and he'll do no good inter-
fering in yours."
Gore laughed.
"So you heard it all!" he said.
"No. If you had talked as loud as he did
I should. But you didn't. It was easy to
hear him say that to-morrow he would go
and order Mariquita to marry you. If that
had been the end of it, I just believe I
should have dressed myself and come in to
tell him not to be silly. But it wasn't the
end. Was it?"
MARIQUITA
"No. To stop that plan I promised I
would propose to Mariquita to-day only
he was to say nothing about it to her first."
"Well, then, I don't know as he has done
any harm. You might do worse."
"I might do better."
"What better?"
"Wait a bit."
"I'm not so sure. I don't know that any
harm would come of waiting a bit, and I
daresay it's all very pleasant meanwhile.
But you can go on with your love-making
after you're engaged just as well as before."
"Ah! If we were engaged!"
"Pfush!" quoth Sarella, inventing a word
which stood her in stead of "Pshaw."
Gore had to laugh again, and no doubt
her good-natured certainty encouraged him
albeit he did not believe she knew Mari-
quita.
"What o'clock shall you propose?" she
inquired coolly.
Of course he could not tell her.
"I guess," she said, "it will be between
two and three. Dinner at twelve. Digestion
190
MARIQUITA
and preliminaries, 12:45 to 1 : 45- Proposal
2 145 say. You will be engaged by 2 150."
As before, Gore liked the encouragement
though very largely discounting its worth.
"On the whole," Sarella observed, "I
daresay my old man has done good as he
has made himself scarce. If he hadn't
threatened to put his own foot in it, you
might have gone on staring up at Mariquita
in the stars till she was forty, and then it
might have struck you that you could get
on fine without her."
Sarella evidently thought that nothing
was to be done before the time she had indi-
cated; during the morning she was in evi-
dence as usual, but immediately after dinner
she retreated to her studies, and was seen no
more for a long time.
Gore boldly announced his intention to
be idle and told Mariquita she must be idle
too, begging her to ride with him. To him-
self it seemed as if everyone about the place
must see that something was in the wind;
but the truth was that everyone had been so
long expecting something definite to happen
without hearing of it, that some of them had
191
MARIQUITA
decided that Gore and Mariquita had fixed
up their engagement already at some unsus-
pected moment, and the rest had almost
ceased to expect to hear anything.
As to Mariquita, she was clearly unsus-
picious that this afternoon was to have any
special significance for her. Always cheer-
ful and unembarrassed, she was exactly her
usual self, untroubled by the faintest pre-
sentiment of fateful events. Her ready
agreement to Gore's proposal that they
should ride together was, he knew well, of
no real good omen. It made him have a
guilty feeling, as if he were getting her out
under false pretences.
There was so happy a light of perfect,
confiding friendliness upon her face that it
seemed almost impossible to cloud it by the
suggestion of anything that would be dif-
ferent from simple friendship. But must it
be clouded by such a suggestion? "Cloud-
ing" means darkening; was it really impos-
sible for that light, so trusting and so con-
tented, of unquestioning friendship, to be
changed without being rendered less
bright? Must Gore assume her to be special-
192
MARIQUITA
ly incapable of an affection deeper than even
friendship? No; of anything good she was
capable; no depths of love could be beyond
her, and he was sure that her nature was
one of deep affectionateness, left unclaimed
till now. The real loneliness of her life, he
told himself, had lain in this very depth of
unclaimed lovingness. And he told himself,
too, not untruly, that she had been less
lonely of late.
Gore might, he felt, hope to awake all
that dormant treasure of affection if he
had time! But he had no longer time. He
did truly, though not altogether, shrink
from the task he had set himself to-day.
He had a genuine reluctance to risk spoil-
ing that happy content of hers; yet he could
not say it was worse than a risk. There was
the counter possibility of that happy content
changing into something lovelier.
That she was not incapable of love he
told himself with full assurance, and he was
half-disposed to believe that she was one
who would never love till asked for her
love.
Sarella might be nearer right than he had
193
MARIQUITA
been. She was of much coarser fibre than
Mariquita, and perhaps he had made too
much of that, for she was a woman at all
events, and shrewd, watchful and a looker-
on with the proverbial advantages (maybe)
over the actors themselves. Sarella knew
how Mariquita spoke of him, though he did
not believe that between the two cousins
there had been confidences about himself;
not real confidences, though Sarella was just
the girl to "chaff" Mariquita about himself,
and would know how her chaff had been
taken. At all events, Don Joaquin must be
forestalled; his blundering interference
must be prevented, and it could only be
prevented by Gore keeping his word and
speaking himself.
194
CHAPTER XXVIII.
HE had kept his word, and had spoken.
They had been out together a long
time when the opportunity came;
they had dismounted, and the horses were
resting. He and she were sitting in the
shade of a small group of trees, to two of
which the horses were tied. Their talk had
turned naturally, and with scarcely any pur-
poseful guidance of his, in a direction that
helped him. And Mariquita talked with
frank unreserve; she felt at home with him
now, and her natural silence had long be-
fore now been melted by his sincerity; her
silence of habit was chiefly habit, due not
to distrust nor a guarded prudence, but to
the much simpler fact that till his arrival,
she had never since her home-coming been
called upon to speak in any real sense by
anyone who cared to hear her, or who had
an interest in what she might have to say.
195
MARIQUITA
His proposal did not come with the least
abruptness, but it was clear and unmistake-
able when it came, and she understood
Mariquita could understand a plain mean-
ing as well as anyone. She did not interrupt,
nor avert her gaze. Indeed, she turned her
eyes, which had been looking far away
across the lovely, empty prairie to the
horizon, to him as he spoke, and her hands
ceased their idle pulling at the grass beside
her. In her eyes, as she listened, there was
a singular shining, and presently they held
a glistening like the dew in early morning
flowers.
Gore had not moved any nearer to her,
nor did he as he ceased. One hand of hers
she moved nearer to him, now, though not
so as to touch him.
"That is what you want?" she said. "Is
that what you have been wanting all the
time?"
Her voice was rather low, but most clear,
and it had no reproach.
"Yes. What can you say to me?"
"I can only say how grateful it makes
me."
196
MARIQUITA
Her words almost astonished him.
Though he might have known that she
must say only exactly what was in her mind.
They conveyed in themselves no refusal,
but he knew at once there was no hope for
him in them.
"Grateful!" He exclaimed. "As if I
could help it!"
"And as if I could help being grateful.
It is so great a thing! For you to wish that
There could be nothing greater. I can
never forget it. You must never think that
I could forget it ... I you know,
Mr. Gore, that I am not like most girls,
being so very ignorant. I have never read
a novel. Even the nuns told me that some
of them are beautiful and not bad at all, but
the contrary. Only, I have never read any.
I know they are full of this matter love
and marriage. They are great things, and
concern nearly all the men and women in
the world, but not quite all. I do not think
I ever said to myself, They don't concern
you.' I do not think I ever thought about
it, but if I had, I believe I should have
known that that matter would never con-
197
MARIQUITA
cern me. Yet I do not want you to mis-
understand Oh, if I could make you un-
derstand, please! I know that it is a great
thing, love and marriage, God's way for
most men and women. And I think it a
wonderful, great thing that a man should
wish that for himself and me; should think
that with me he could be happier than in
any other way. Of course, I never thought
anyone would feel that. It is a thing to
thank you for, and always I shall thank
you . . ."
"Is it impossible?"
She paused an infinitesimal moment and
said:
a just that. Impossible."
"Would it be fair to ask why 'impos-
sible'?"
"Not unfair at all. But perhaps I cannot
answer. I will try to answer. When you
told me what you wanted it pleased me
because you wanted it, and it hurt me be-
cause I (who had never thought about it
before) knew at once that it was not pos-
sible to do what you wanted, and I would
so much rather be able to please you."
198
MARIQUITA
"You will never be able to do anything
else but please me. Your refusing cannot
change your being yourself."
Gore could not worry her with demands
for reasons. He knew there was no one
else. He knew she was not incapable of
loving for he knew, better than ever, that
she loved greatly and deeply all whom she
knew. Nay, he knew that she loved him,
among them, but more than any of them.
And yet he saw that she was simply right.
What he had asked was "impossible, just
that." Better than himself she would love
no one, and in the fashion of a wife she
would love no one, ever.
Yet, he asked her a question, not to harry
her but because of her father. "Perhaps
you have resolved never to marry," he said.
"I never thought of it. But, as soon as I
knew what you were saying, I knew I
should never marry anyone. It was not a
resolution. It was just a certainty. Alas!
our resolutions are not certainties."
"But," Gore said gently, feeling it nec-
essary to prepare her, "your father may
wish you to marry."
199
MARIQUITA
She paused, dubiously, and her brown
skin reddened a little.
"You think so? Yes, he may," she
answered in a troubled voice ; for she feared
her father, more even than she was con-
scious of.
"I think he does," Gore said, not watch-
ing the poor girl's troubled face.
"He wants me to marry you?" she in-
quired anxiously.
"I am afraid so; ever since he made up
his mind. I do not think he liked the idea
of letting you marry me till long after he
saw what I hoped for. You see, I began to
hope for it from the very first from the
day when we first met, by the river. He
did not like me then; he did not know
whether to approve of me or not. And at
first he was inclined to approve all the less
because he saw I wanted to win you for
myself. I don't know that he likes me much
even now; but he approves, and he approves
of my plan. You know that once he has
made up his mind to approve a plan, he
likes it more and more. He gets deter-
mined and obstinate about it."
200
MARIQUITA
"Yes. He will be angry."
"I am afraid so. But it is because he
thinks it a father's duty to arrange for his
daughter's future, and this plan suited
him."
"Oh, yes! I know he is a good man. He
will feel he is right in being angry."
"But I don't. He will be wrong.
Though he is your father, he has not the
right to try and force you to do what you
say is impossible."
"Yes," she said gently, "it is impossible.
But I shall not be able to make him see
that."
"I see it. And it concerns me more than
it concerns him."
"You are more kind than anyone I ever
heard of," she told him. "I never dared to
hope you would come to see that that it is
impossible."
"Can you tell him why?"
"Perhaps I do not quite understand you."
"It seems a long time ago, now, to me
since I asked you if you could come to love
me and be my wife. Everything seems
changed and different. I wonder if I could
201
MARIQUITA
guess why you knew instantly that it was
impossible. It might help you with your
father."
Mariquita listened, and gave no prohibi-
tion.
"I think," he said, "you knew it was im-
possible, because my words taught you, if
you did not know already, that you could
be no man's wife "
"Oh, yes! That is true."
"But perhaps they taught you also some-
thing else, which you may not have known
before that you could belong only to
God."
"I have known that always," she answered
simply.
202
CHAPTER XXIX.
WHEN Don Joaquin returned, he
was in an unusually bad temper,
and itwaswell that Mariquita had
gone to bed. Gore was sitting up, and, though
it was long past Sarella's usual hour, she had
insisted on sitting up also. This was good-
natured of her, for there was no pleasure
to 'be anticipated from the interview with
Don Joaquin, and she disliked any derange-
ment of her habits. Gore had begged her
to retire at her ordinary hour, but she had
flatly refused.
"I can do more with him than you can,"
she declared, quite truly, "though no one
will be able to stop his being as savage as
a bear. I'm sorry for Mariquita; she'll
have a bad time to-morrow, and it won't
end with to-morrow."
Meanwhile she took the trouble to have
ready a good supper for Don Joaquin, and
203
MARIQUITA
made rather a special toilette in which to
help him to it. Sarella was not in the least
afraid of him, and had no great dread of a
row which concerned someone else. Don
Joaquin was not, however, particularly mol-
lified by the becoming dress, nor by finding
his betrothed sitting up for him, as she was
sitting up with Gore.
"Where's Mariquita?" he asked, as he
sat down to eat.
"In bed long ago. I hope you'll like that
chicken; it's done in a special way we have,
and the recipe's my patent. I haven't
taught it to Mariquita."
"Why aren't you in bed?"
"Because I preferred waiting to see you
safe at home," Sarella replied with an en-
trancing smile.
"Was Mr. Gore anxious too?" Don
Joaquin demanded sarcastically.
"It is not a quarter of an hour later than
my usual time for going to bed," Gore
answered. "And I thought it better to see
you ; you would, I believe, have expected to
see me."
"Very well. You have done as you said?'
204
MARIQUITA
"Yes." Gore glanced at Sarella, and Don
Joaquin told her that she had now better sit
up no longer.
"I think I had," she told him; "I know
all about it."
"Is it all settled?" Don Joaquin asked,
looking at Gore. "Have you fixed it up?"
Gore found this abruptness and haste
made his task very difficult.
He had to consider how to form his reply.
"He proposed to Mariquita," Sarella cut
in, "but she refused him."
"Refused him!" Don Joaquin almost
shouted.
"Unfortunately, it is so," Gore was
beginning, but his host interrupted him.
"I do not choose she should refuse," he
said angrily. "I will tell her so before you
see her in the morning."
Gore was angry himself, and rose from
his seat.
"No," he said; "I will not agree to that
She knows her own mind, and it will not
change. You must not persecute her on my
account."
"It is not on your account. I choose to
205
MAKTQTTITA
have duty and obedience from my own
daughter/'
"Joaquin," said Sarella (Gore had never
before heard her call him by his Christian
name), "it is no use taking it that way.
Mariquita is not undutiful, and you must
know it. But she will not marry Mr. Gore
or anybody."
"Of course she will marry," cried the
poor girl's father fiercely. "That is the
duty of every girl."
Sarella slightly smiled.
"Then many girls do not do their duty,"
she said, in her even, unimpassioned tones.
Her elderly fiance was about to burst into
another explosion, but she would not let
him.
"Many Catholic girls," she reminded
him, "remain unmarried."
"To be nuns that is different"
"It is my belief," she observed in a de-
tached manner, as if indulging in a mere
surmise, "that Mariquita will be a nun."
"Mariquita! Has she said so?" he de-
manded sharply.
206
MARIQUITA
"Not to me," Sarella replied, quite un-
concernedly.
"Nor to me," Gore explained; "neverthe-
less, I believe it will be so."
"That depends on me," the girl's father
asserted with an unpleasant mixture of
annoyance and obstinacy. "I intend her to
marry."
"Only a Protestant," said Sarella, with a
shrewd understanding of Don Joaquin that
surprised Gore, "would marry her if she
believes she has a vocation to be a nun. I
should think a Catholic man would be
ashamed to do it. He would expect a judg-
ment on himself and his children."
Don Joaquin was as angry as ever, as
savage as ever, but he was startled. Both
his companions could see this. Gore was
astonished at Sarella's speech, and at her
acumen. He had wished to have this inter-
view with Mariquita's father to himself, but
already saw that Sarella knew how to con-
duct it better than he did. She had clearly
been quite willing that "the old man" (as
he disrespectfully called him in his own
mind) should fly out and give way to his
207
MARIQUITA
fiery temper at once; the more of it went off
now, the less would remain for poor Mari-
quita to endure.
"If I were a Catholic man," Sarella con-
tinued cooly, "I should think it profane to
make a girl marry me who had given her-
self to be a nun. I expect the Lord would
punish it." She paused meditatively, and
then added, "and all who joined in pushing
her to it. I know / wouldn't join. I think
folks have enough of their own to answer
for, without bringing judgments down on
their heads for things like that. It won't
get me to heaven to help in interfering be-
tween Mariquita and her way of getting
there."
All the while she spoke, Sarella seemed
to be admiring, with her head turned on one
side, the prettiness of her left wrist on which
was a gold bangle, with a crystal heart
dangling from it. Don Joaquin had given
her the bangle, and himself admired the
heart chiefly because it was crystal and not
of diamonds.
"Isn't it pretty?" she said, looking sud-
denly up and catching his eye watching her.
208
MARIQUITA
"I thought you hadn't cared much for
it," he answered, greatly pleased. He had
always known she would have preferred a
smaller heart if crusted with diamonds.
Gore longed to laugh. She astonished
and puzzled him. Her cleverness was a
revelation to him, and her good-nature, her
subtlety, and her earnestness for he knew
she had been in earnest in what she said
about not daring to interfere with other
people's ways of getting to heaven.
"That old man who instructs her," he
thought, "must have taught her a lot."
Of course, on his own account, he was no
more afraid of Don Joaquin than she was.
But he had been terribly afraid of the hard
old man on Mariquita's, and he was deeply
grateful to Sarella,
"Sir," he said, "what she has said to you
I do feel myself. I am a Catholic and the
dearest of my sisters is a nun. I should have
hated and despised any man who had tried
to spoil her life by snatching it to himself
against her will. He would have to be a
wicked fellow, and brutal, and impious.
God's curse would lie on him. So it would
209
MARIQUITA
on me if I did that hideous thing, though
God knows to-day has brought me the great
disappointment of my life. Life can never
be for me what I have been hoping it might
be. Never."
Sarella, listening, and knowing that the
two men were looking at each other, smiled
at her bangle, and softly shook the dangling
heart to make the crystal give as diamond-
like a glitter as possible. Gore's life, she
thought, would come all right. She had
done her best valorously for Mariquita;
women, in her theory, behooved to do their
best for each other against masculine tyr-
rany ("bossishness," she called it), but all
the time she was half-savage, herself, with
the girl for not being willing to be happy
in so obviously comfortable a way as of-
fered. It seemed to her "wasteful" that so
pretty a girl should go and be a nun; if she
had been "homely" like Sister Aquinas it
would have been different. But Sarella had
learned from Sister Aquinas that these mat-
ters were above her, and was quite content
to accept them without understanding them.
"Ever since I came here," Gore was say-
210
MARIQUITA
ing, a l have lived in a dream of what life
would be if I could join hers with mine.
It was only a dream, and I had to awake."
Don Joaquin did not understand his
mind, but he was able now to see that the
young man suffered, and had received a
blow that, somehow, would change his life,
and turn its course aside.
"Anything," Gore said, in a very low,
almost thankful tone, "is better than it
would have been if I had changed my
dream for a nightmare; it would have been
that, if I had to think of myself as trying to
pull her down, from her level to mine, of
her as having been brought down. I meant
to do her all possible good, all my life long.
How can I wish to have done her the great-
est harm? As it would have been if, out of
fear or over-persuasion, she had been
brought to call herself my wife who could
be no man's wife."
("How he loves her!" thought Sarella.)
("I doubt it has wrecked him a bit,"
thought Don Joaquin.)
211
CHAPTER XXX.
MARIQUITA awoke early to see Sa-
rella entering her room, and it sur-
prised her, for her cousin was not
fond of leaving her bed betimes.
"Oh, Pm going back to bed again,"
Sarella explained. "We were up to all
hours. Of course, your father made a
rumpus."
Mariquita heard this with less surprise
than concern. It really grieved her to dis-
please him.
"He has very queer old-fashioned no-
tions," Sarella remarked, settling herself
comfortably on Mariquita's bed, "and
thinks it's his business to arrange all your
affairs for you. Besides, you know by this
time that any plan he has been hatching he
expects to hatch out, and not to help him
seems to him most undutiful and shocking."
"But I can't help him in this plan of his,"
Mariquita pleaded unhappily.
212
MARIQUITA
"I suppose not. Well, he flared out, and
I was glad you were in bed. Gore behaved
very well. It's a thousand pities you can't
like him."
"But I do like him. I like him better
than any man I ever knew."
"Oh, yes! Better than the cowboys or
the old chaplain at Loretto. That's no
good."
All this Sarella intended as medicinal;
Mariquita, she thought, ought to have some
of the chill of the late storm. She was not
entitled to immediate and complete relief
from suspense. But Sarella was beginning
to feel a little chill about the legs herself,
and did not care to risk a cold, so she ab-
breviated her disciplinary remarks a little.
"Fm a good stepmother," she remarked
complacently, "not at all like one in a novel.
I took your part."
"Did you!" Mariquita cried gratefully;
"it was very, very kind of you."
"I don't approve of men having things
all their own way whether fathers or hus-
bands. He has been knocked under to too
much. Yes, I took your part, and made him
213
MARIQUITA
understand that if he kept the row up he'd
have three of us against him."
"What did you say?"
"All sorts of things. Never mind. Per-
haps Mr. Gore will tell you only he won't.
He said a lot of things too. We made youi
father think he would be wicked if he went
on bullying you."
Of course, Mariquita did not understand
how this had been effected.
"He would not do anything wicked," she
said; "he is a very good man."
"He'd be a very good mule," Sarella
observed coolly, considerably scandalizing
Mariquita.
"You'd have found him a pretty unpleas-
ant one, if Gore and I had left you to
manage him yourself." Sarella added, en-
tirely unmoved by her cousin's shocked
look. "We managed him. He won't beat
you now. But you'd better keep out of his
way as much as you can for a bit. If I were
you, I'd have a bad headache and stop in
bed."
"But I haven't a headache. I never do
have headaches."
214
MARIQUITA
Sarella made a queer face, and sighed,
then laughed.
"Anyway, you're not to be made to marry
Mr. Gore," she said.
Mariquita looked enormously relieved,
and began to express her grateful sense of
Sarella's good offices.
"For that matter," Sarella cut in, "neither
will Mr. Gore be made to marry you so if
you change your mind it will be no good.
He thinks it would be wicked to marry
you."
Mariquita perfectly understood that
Sarella was trying to make her sorry, and
only gave a cheerful little laugh.
"Then," she said, "I shall certainly not
ask him. It would be quite useless to ask
him to do anything wicked."
"The fact is," Sarella told her, "that you
and he ought to be put in a glass case two
glass cases, you'd both of you be quite
shocked at the idea of being in one and
labelled. It's a good thing you're unique.
If other lovers were like you two, there'd
be no marriages."
215
MARIQUITA
She got up, and prepared to return to her
own room.
"Hulloa!" she said, "there's the auto.
Your father's going off somewhere, and you
can get up. Probably he is taking Gore
away."
"Is Mr. Gore going away?"
"He'll have to. There's no one here for
him to marry except Ginger; but no doubt
you want him to become a monk."
"A monk! He hasn't the least idea of
such a thing."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Sarella, instantly
changing the sigh into a laugh. "How
funny you people are who never condescend
to see a joke."
"I didn't know," Mariquita confessed
meekly, "that you had made one."
216
CHAPTER XXXI.
DON JOAQUIN was not yet recov-
ered from his annoyance. As Sa-
rella had perceived, he could not
easily condone the defective conduct of those
who, owing him obedience, refused to carry
out a plan that he had long been meditating.
But he had been frightened by the picture
she had suggested of Divine judgment, and
wondered if the hitches that had occurred
in the issue of the dispensation for his mar-
riage had been a hint of them a threaten-
ing of what would happen if he opposed
the Heavenly Will concerning his daugh-
ter's vocation. It was chiefly because the
plan of her marriage had been deliberately
adopted by himself, that he was reluctant to
abandon it. Her own plan of becoming a
nun would, he gradually came to see, suit
him quite as well. And presently he became
aware that, financially, it would suit him
217
MARIQUITA
even better. If she "entered Religion," he
would have to give her a dowry; but not, he
imagined, a large one, five thousand dollars
or so, he guessed. Whereas, if she married
Gore, he would be expected to give her
much more. Besides, her marriage would
very likely involve subsequent gifts and ex-
penditure. It would all come out of what
he wished to save for the beloved son of
whom he was always thinking. As a nun,
too, Mariquita would be largely engaged in
praying for the soul of her mother, and for
his own soul and Sarella's and her brother's.
By the time he and Mariquita met he had
grasped all these advantages, and, though
aloof and disapproving in his manner, he
did not attack her.
As it pleased him to admire in Sarella a
delightful shrewdness in affairs, he gave her
credit for favoring Mariquita's plan because
it would leave more money for her own
children. In this he paid her an undeserved
compliment, for Sarella did not know in
the least that Mariquita would receive less
of her father's money if she became a nun
than if she married Mr. Gore. She had
21
8
MARIQUITA
not thought of it, being much of opinion
that Gore would ask for nothing in the way
of dowry and that Don Joaquin would give
nothing without much asking.
Don Joaquin was considerably taken
aback to learn that Mariquita had formed
no definite plans yet as to her "entering
Religion." He had promptly decided that,
of course, she would go back to Loretto as
a nun, and he was proportionally surprised
to find that she had no such idea. This sur-
prise he expressed, almost in dudgeon, to
Sarella. He appeared to consider himself
quite ill-used by such vagueness; if young
women wanted to be nuns it behooved them
to know exactly where they meant to go,
and what religious work they felt called to
undertake.
"If I were you," Sarella told him, after
some hasty consideration, "I would let her
go to Loretto on a visit. You will find she
makes up her mind quicker there with
nothing to distract her. Sister Aquinas
talks of Retreats Mariquita could make
one."
219
MARIQUITA
"Who's to do the work here while she's
away?" grumbled Don Joaquin.
"It will have to be done when she's gone
for good. We may just as well think it out."
Sarella was quite resolved that she would
never be the slave Mariquita had been, and
did not mind having the struggle, if there
was to be one, now.
"Whether Mariquita married or became
a nun," she went on, "she would be gone
from here. Her place would have to be
supplied more than supplied, for a young
wife like me could not do nearly so much
work. I should have things to do an un-
married girl has not, and be unfit for much
work. I am sure you understand that. Sis-
ter Aquinas knows two sisters, very respect-
able and trustworthy, steady, and not too
young. I meant to speak to you about them.
They would suit us as well. They will not
separate, and for that matter, we can't do
with less than two."
Sarella's great object was to open the
matter; she intended to succeed but did not
count on instant success, or success without
a struggle. Don Joaquin had to be famili-
220
MARIQUITA
arized with a scheme some time before he
would adopt it. He rebelled at first and for
that rebellion she punished him.
"Mariquita's position was wrong," she
told him boldly. "It tended to make her
unlike other girls and give her unusual
ideas. She was tied by the leg here, by too
much work, and her only rest or recreation
was solitary thinking. If she had been
taken about and met her equals she would
have been like other girls, I expect. She
was a slave and sought her freedom in the
skies."
Don Joaquin enjoyed this philippic very
little; perhaps he only partly understood it,
but he did understand that Sarella thought
Mariquita had been put upon and did not
intend being put upon herself. He would
have been much less influenced if he had
thought of Sarella as specially devoted to
his daughter or blindly fond of her, but he
had always believed that there was but a
cool sympathy between the two girls, and
that Sarella would have found fault with
Mariquita quite willingly if there had been
fault to find.
221
MARIQUITA
"You have taken up the cudgels," he said
sourly, "very strongly for Mariquita of
late."
"As time goes on I naturally feel able to
speak more plainly than I could when I
first came here. I was only your guest. It
is different ( of late/ And I am 'taking up
the cudgels' for myself more than for
Mariquita."
"Oh, I quite see that," he retorted with a
savage grin.
Sarella determined to hit back, and she
was by no means restrained by scruples as
to "hitting below the belt."
"Fortunately for her," she said, "Mari-
quita has splendid health, and work did not
kill her. She has the strength of a horse.
Her mother did not leave it to her. I have
always heard in the family that Aunt Mar-
garet was delicate, physically unfit for hard
work. Men do not notice those things. She
died too young, and might have lived much
longer if she had not overtaxed her strength.
She ought to have been prevented from
doing so much work. You were not too
222
MARIQUITA
poor to have allowed her plenty of help
and you are much better off now."
Don Joaquin almost jumped with horror;
he had really adored his wife, and now he
was being flatly and relentlessly accused of
having perhaps shortened her life by lack of
consideration for her. And was it true?
He could not help remembering much to
support the accusation. She had been a
woman of feeble health and feeble temper;
her singular beauty of feature and coloring
had been in every eye but Joaquin's own,
marred by an expression of discontent and
complaining, though she had been too much
in awe of her masterful husband to set out
her grievances to him ; he guessed now that
she must have written grumbling letters to
her relations far away in the East. The
man was no monster of cruelty; he was
merely stingy and money-loving, hard-
natured, and without imagination. Pos-
sessed of iron health himself, he had never
conceived that the sort of work his Indian
mother had submissively performed could
be beyond the strength of his wife. It was
true that he was much richer now than he
223
MARIQUITA
had been when he married, and Sarella had
herself accustomed him to the idea of
greater expenditure, however dexterously
he might have done his best to neutralize
those spendings. He was more obstinately
set upon marrying her than ever, because he
had for a long time now decided upon the
marriage; he was nervously afraid of her
drawing back if he didn't yield to her
wishes, the utterance of which he took to be
a sort of ultimatum.
"Are these two women Catholics?" he
demanded, feeling sure that Sister Aquinas
would only recommend such; "I will not
have Protestant servants in the house."
"They are excellent Catholics," Sarella
assured him, "educated in the convent."
"Then I will consider the plan. You can
ask Sister Aquinas about the conditions-
wages, and so forth."
"What a pity," thought Sarella, when the
interview had ended, "that Mariquita never
knew how to manage him."
224
CHAPTER XXXII.
THERE was no pomp of leave-taking
about Mariquita's departure for Lo-
retto. She was only going on a visit,
and would return.
"Whatever you decide upon," Sarella in-
sisted, "you must come back for your
father's wedding."
Mariquita promised, and went away, her
father driving her all the way to Loretto in
the auto. Her departure did not move him
much, though he would have been better
pleased, after all, if she were going away
to a husband's house. Sarella, watching
them disappear in the distance, felt it more
than the stoical old half-breed.
"I shall miss her," she said to herself; "I
like her better than I thought I should. She's
as straight as an arrow, and as true as gold.
I suppose this watch is gold ; he'd never dare
to give me rolled gold . . . Only nine
225
MARIQUITA
o'clock. It will be a long day, and I shall
miss her all the time. Quiet as she is, it
will make a lot of difference. No one has
such a nice way of laughing, when she does
laugh. I wonder if she guesses how little
her father cares? He won't miss her much.
Some men care never a pin for a woman
unless they want to marry her. He has no
use for the others. I expect it makes them
good husbands, though. Poor Mariquita!
I think I should have hated him if I had
been her. It never occurred to her; at first
I thought she must be an A-Number-One
hypocrite, she seemed to think him so ex-
actly all that he ought to be to her. Then I
thought she must be stupid I soon saw she
was as sincere as a baby. But she's not
stupid either. She's just Mariquita; she
really does see only the things she ought to
see, and it's queer. I never saw anyone else
that way. I thought at first she must be
jealous of me, the old man put her so com-
pletely on one side, and made such a lot of
me. Any other girl would have been. I
soon saw she wasn't; it never entered her
head that he might leave me money that
226
MABIQUITA
ought to be hers it would have entered
mine, I know. But 'she never thought of
that,' as she used to say about everything."
Oddly enough, it was at this particular
recollection that a certain dewy brightness
(that became them well) glistened in Sa-
rella's pretty eyes.
"Well," she thought, "I'm glad I can call
to mind that I did the best I could for her.
It made me feel just sick to think of the olcf
man brow-beating and bullying her. I saw
a big hulking fellow beat his little girl once,
and I felt just the same, only I could do
nothing then but scream. I was a child
myself, and I did scream, and I bit him.
I'm glad I did bite him, though I was
spanked for it. I suppose I'll have to con-
fess biting him, though I don't call it a sin.
What on earth can Mariquita confess? At
first her goodness put my back up. But I
wish she was back. It never occurs to her
that she's 1 good. I soon found that out. And
she thinks everyone else as good as gold.
She thinks all these cowboys good, and she
does almost make them want to be. It was
funny that she didn't dislike me. (/ should
227
MARIQUITA
have if I'd been in her place.) When she
kissed me good-bye and said 'Sarella, we'll
never forget each other/ it meant more than
pounds of candy-talk from another girl.
Forget her! Not I. Will Gore? He will
never think any other girl her equal. Mrs.
Gore may make up her mind to that. Per-
haps he'll marry someone not half so good
as himself and rather like it. Pfushl It
feels lonesome now. I often used to get into
my own room to get out of Mariquita's way,
and stretch the legs of my mind over a
novel. I wish she was here now . . ."
And Sarella did not speedily give over
missing Mariquita. She was a girl who on
principle preferred men's society to that of
other women, but in practice had consider-
able need of female companionship. She
liked to make men admire her, but she did
not much care to be admired by the cow-
boys, and took it for granted that they
already admired her as much as befitted
their inferior position. She had always been
too shrewd to try and make other women
admire her, but she liked talking to them
about clothes, which no man understands;
228
MARIQUITA
and, though Mariquita had been careless
about her own sumptuous affairs, she had
been a wonderfully appreciative (or long-
suffering) listener when Sarella talked
about hers.
"And after all," Sarella confessed, "she
had taste. My style would not have suited
her* That plain style of her own was best
for her."
When Don Joaquin returned from Den-
ver he seemed unlike himself, almost sub-
dued. He had been much impressed by
the great convent and its large community;
the nuns had made much of him, and of
Mariquita. They spoke in a way that at
last put it into his head that he had under-
valued her; there is nothing for awaking
our appreciation of our own near relations
like the sudden perception that other people
think greatly of them. Gore's respect and
admiration for his daughter had not done
much, for he had only looked upon it as the
blind predilection of a young man in love
with a beautiful girl. Several of the nuns,
including their Reverend Mother, had
spoken to him apart, in Mariquita's absence,
229
MARIQUITA
not immediately on his and her arrival, but
on the evening of the following day; on the
morrow he was to depart on his return to
the range, and in these conversations the
Sisters let him plainly see that they regarded
the girl as peculiarly graced by God, and
of rarely high and noble character.
He asked the Superior if she thought
Mariquita would wish to stay with them
and become one of themselves.
"No," was the answer. "She is a born
Contemplative. Every nun must be a con-
templative in some degree, but I use the
word in its common sense. I mean that I
believe she will find herself called to an
Order of pure Contemplatives. She will
make a Retreat here, and very likely will be
shown during it what is God's will for her.
It surprised the kind and warm-hearted
Religious that he did not inquire whether
that life were not very hard. But she took
charitable refuge in the supposition that he
knew so little about one Order or another
as to be free from the dread that his child
might have a life of great austerity before
her.
230
MARIQUITA
"You may be sure," she said, in case later
on any such affectionate misgiving should
trouble him, "that she will be happy. Un-
seen by you or us she will do great things
for God and His children. You shall share
in it by giving her to Him when He calls.
She is your only child ("As yet," thought,
Don Joaquin, even now more concerned for
her brother than for her) and God will
reward your generosity. He never lets
Himself be outstripped in that. For the
gift of Abraham's son He blest his whole
race."
Don Joaquin knew very little about
Abraham, but he understood that all the
Jews since his time had been notably suc-
cessful in finance.
It did not cause him any particular emo-
tion to leave his daughter. She was being
left where she liked to be, and would doubt-i
less be at home among these holy women
who seemed to think so much of her, and to
be so fond of her. He had forgiven her for
wishing to be a nun and thought highly of
himself for having given his permission.
The nuns thought he concealed his feel-
231
MARIQUITA
ings to spare Mariquita's, and praised God
for the unselfishness of parents.
Mariquita had never expected tenderness
from him, but she thought him a good man
and a good father, and was very grateful
for his concession in abandoning his insist-
ence on her marriage, and sanctioning her
choice of her own way of life. And he did
embrace her on parting, and bade God bless
her, reminding her that it would be h&r
duty to pray much for himself and Sarella.
At the range he found a letter, which had
arrived late on the day on which he had left
home with her, and this letter he took as a
proof that she had prayed to some purpose.
The dispensation was granted and he could
now fix his marriage for any date he chose.
"Did she send me her love?" Sarella
asked, jealous of being at all forgotten.
"Yes, twice; and when I kissed her she
said, 'Kiss Sarella for me. 7 Also she sent
you a letter."
Sarella received very few letters and liked
getting them. She was rather curious to see
what sort of letter Mariquita would write,
232
MABIQUITA
and made up her mind it would be "nunnish
and poky."
Whether "nunnish" or no, it was not
"poky," but pleasant, very cheerful and
bright, and very affectionate. It contained
little jokish allusions to home matters, and
former confidential talks, and one passage
(much valued by Sarella) concerning a
gown, retracting a former opinion and sub-
stituting another backed by most valid rea-
sons. "If those speckled hens go on eating
each other's feathers," said the letter, "you'll
have to kill them and eat them. Once they
start they never give it up, and it puts the
idea in the others' heads. Feathers don't
suit everybody, but fowls look wicked with-
out them. I hope poor old Jack doesn't
miss me; give him and Ginger my love, and
ask him to forgive me for not marrying
Mr. Gore he gave me a terrible lecture
about it, and Ginger said, 'Quit it, Dad! I
knew she wouldn't. I know sweethearts
when I see them though I never did see
one not of my own.' I expect Larry Burke
will show her one soon, don't you, Sarella?
It will do very well ; Larry will have the
233
MARIQUITA
looks and Ginger will have the sense, and
teach him all he needs. He has such a good
heart he can get on without too much
sense . . ."
Sarella liked her letter, and decided that
Mariquita was not lost, though removed.
234
CHAPTER XXXIII.
T SUPPOSE >" Don Joaquin remarked
in a disengaged manner, "that, after
all your preparations, we can fix the
day for our wedding any time now."
Sarella was not in the least taken in by
his elaborate air of having been able, for his
part, to have fixed a day long ago.
It was, however, part of her system to fall
in with people's whimsies when nothing was
to be gained by opposing or exposing them.
"Oh, yes," she agreed, most amiably. "It
will take three Sundays to publish the banns
any day after that. Meanwhile I should
be received. Sister Aquinas says I am
ready. As soon as we have settled the exact
time, we must let Mariquita know, and you
can, when the time comes, go over and fetch
her home."
Don Joaquin consented, and Sarella
thought she would go and deliver Mari-
235
MARIQUITA
quita's message to Jack and his daughter.
She found them together and began by say-
ing, smilingly:
"I expect you have known for a long
while that there was a marriage in the air?"
Old Jack had not learned to like her, and
Ginger still disliked her smile.
"I don't believe," she said perversely, for,
of course, both she and her father under-
stood perfectly, "that Miss Mariquita is
going to be married. She's not that way."
This was a discouraging opening, for it
seemed to cast a sort of slur on young
women who were likely to be married.
"Mr. Gore's never asked again 1" cried
Jack.
"Dad, don't you be silly," Ginger sug-
gested; "everyone knows Miss Mariquita
wants to be a nun."
"Yes," said Sarella with impregnable
amiability, "but we can't all be nuns. Miss
Mariquita doesn't seem to think you likely
to be one. She sent me back by her father
such a nice letter. She sends Jack and you
her love, and, though she doesn't send Larry
Burke her love, thinking of you evidently
236
MARIQUITA
makes her think of him."
Ginger visibly relaxed, and her father
stared appallingly with his one eye.
"Good Lord!" quoth he in more sincere
than flattering astonishment.
"Well, he is good," Ginger observed
cooly, "and there's worse folk than Larry
Burke, or me either."
"Miss Mariquita thinks it would be such
a good thing for him," Sarella reported.
"So must any one."
Ginger felt that this, after her unpleas-
antness to the young lady who brought the
message, was handsome.
"He might do better," she declared, "and
he might do worse."
"Has he said anything?" her father in-
quired with undisguised incredulity.
"What he's said is nothing," Ginger
calmly replied. "It's what I think as mat-
ters. He's no Cressote, but he's got a bit
or ought, if he hasn't spent it. I'd keep his
money together for him, and he'd soon find
it a saving. And I could do with him for
if his head's soft so's his heart. I think,
Dad," she concluded, willing "to take it
237
MARIQUITA
out" of her father for his unflattering in-
credulity, "you may as well, when Miss
Sarella's gone, tell him to step round. I'll
soon fix it."
"I couldn't do that," Jack expostulated.
"Why not?" Ginger demanded with fell
determination.
"I really don't see why you shouldn't,"
Sarella protested, much amused though not
betraying it. "It's all for his good," she
added seriously.
Jack was shaken, but not yet disposed to
obedience.
"Larry," Sarella urged, "won't be so
much surprised as you think. Miss Mari-
quita, you see, wants him and Ginger to
make a match of it
"But does he?" Jack pleaded, moved by
Mariquita's opinion, but not so sure it
would reduce Larry to subjection.
"Tut!" said Ginger impatiently. "What's
he to do with it? If he don't know what's
best for him, I do. So does Miss Sarella. So
does Miss Mariquita."
"And," Sarella added, "you may be sure
Miss Mariquita would never have said a
238
MARIQUITA
word about it if she hadn't felt pretty sure
it was to come off. She's never been one to
be planning marriages. Why, Larry must
have made it as plain as a pikestaff that he
was ready, or she would never have
guessed it."
The weight of this argument left Jack
defenseless.
"Hadn't you better wait, Ginger," he
attempted to argue with shallow subtlety;
"he's like enough to step round after sup-
per. Then I'd clear, and you could say
when you liked."
"No," Ginger decided, "I'm tired of him
stepping round after supper, just to chatter.
He'd be prepared if you told him I'd said
he was to come. He'd know something was
wanted. In fact, you'd better tell him."
"Tell him? Me? Tell him what?"
"Just that I'd made up my mind to say
'yes' if he'd a question to ask me."
"Why," cried Jack, aghast, "he'd get on
his horse and scoot."
"Not far," Ginger opined, entirely un-
moved. "He'd ride back. He's not pluck
239
MARIQUITA
enough to be such a coward as to scoot for
good. Just you try."
The two women drove the battered old
fellow off, Ginger laughed and said:
"Aren't men helpless?"
Sarella was full of admiration of her
prowess.
"Well, you're not," she said.
"Not me. But, Dad won't find Larry as
much surprised as he thinks. It's been in
the silly chap's head (or where folks keep
their ideas that have no head) this three
weeks. I saw, though he never said a lot "
Overpowered by curiosity, Sarella asked
boldly what he did say.
"Oh, just rubbish," Ginger answered
laughing; "you're as clean as a tablet of
scented soap, anyway," says he, first. Then
he said, "Ginger, I've known pretty girls
with hair not near so nice as yours not a
quarter so much of it." Another time he
asked if I kept a tooth-brush. "I thought
so," says he, quite loving; "your teeth's as
white as nuts with the brown skin off, and
as regular as a row of tombstones in an
undertaker's window. I never did mind
240
MARIQUITA
freckles as true as I stand here . . ." and
stuff like that. But the strongest ever he
said was, "Pastry! What's pastry when a
woman don't know how to make it. I'd as
soon eat second-hand toast. Yours, Ginger,
is like what the angels make, / should say,
at Thanksgiving for the little angels.' '
"Did he, really!" said Sarella, feeling
quite sure that Larry would not "scoot."
"I told him," Ginger explained calmly,
that if he didn't quit such senseless talk he'd
never get any more of my pastry. He looked
so down that I gave him a slice of pumpkin
pie when he was leaving. "The pastry,"
says I, "will mind you of me, and the pump-
kin of yourself." But he got his own back,
for he just grinned and said, "Yes, I'll think
o' them together, Ginger, for the pie and the
pumpkin belongs together, don't they?"
Sarella laughed and expressed her belief
that after all Jack's embassy was rather
superfluous.
"Maybe so. But I knew he'd hate it, and
he deserved it for seeming so unbelieving.
If my mother had been lovely I'd have been
born plain; it's not him as should think me
241
MARIQUITA
too ugly for any young fellow to fancy. I 1
daresay I shouldn't have decided to take
Larry if Miss Mariquita hadn't sent that
message. I was afraid she'd think me a
fool. Here's Larry coming round the cor-
ner, looking as if he'd been stealing his
mother's sugar."
"He's only thinking of your pastry," said
Sarella. "I'll slip off. May I be told when
it's all settled?"
"Yes, certainly, Miss Sarella, and I'm
sure I wish all that's best to the Boss and
yourself. It's not everyone could manage
him, but you will. Poor Miss Mariquita
never could. She was too good."
With these mixed compliments Sarella
had to content herself.
242
CHAPTER XXXIV.
WHEN she answered Mariquita's
letter she was to report not only
the judicial end of the plumiver-
ous and specked hens, but the betrothal of
Larry Burke and Ginger. "Nothing," she
wrote, "but his dread of your displeasure
could have overcome his dread of what the
other cowboys would say on hearing of his
proposing. After all, he has more sense than
some sharp fellows who follow at last the
advice they know is worth least. . . ."
In her next letter Sarella said:
"I am to be made a Catholic on Monday
next; so when you're saying your prayers
(and that's all day) you can be thinking of
me. Perhaps I gave in to it first to satisfy
your father; but even then I thought 'if it
makes me a bit more like Mariquita he'll
get a better bargain in me.' I shan't ever
be at all like you, but I shall be of the same
Religion as you, and I know by this time
243
MARIQUITA
that it will do me good. It's all a bit too big
for me to understand, but I like what I do
understand, and Sister Aquinas says I shall
grow into it. Clothes, she says, fit better
when they're worn a bit, and sit easier. She
says, 'It has changed you, my dear child,
already; you are gentler, and kinder.' She
said another thing, 'Your husband has been
a Catholic all his life, but you will gradu-
ally make him a better one. He is a very
sensible man, and he can't see you learning
to be a Catholic and not want to learn what
it really means himself. He is too honest.'
She likes your father a lot, and never both-
ers him. ( I know,' she said, 'you will not
bother him either. Some earnest Catholics
do bother their men-folks terribly about
religious things and for all the good they
seem to do, might be only half as earnest and
have a better effect.' I make my First Com-
munion the day after I'm received. And,
Mariquita, my dear, we are to be married
that day week. Your father will fetch you
home, and mind, mind, you come. I should
never forgive you if you didn't. Shall I
have Ginger for a bridesmaid? I know
244
MARIQUITA
some brides do choose ugly ones to make
themselves look better. The cowboys (this
is a dead secret told me by Ginger) have
subscribed to give us a wedding-present. I
hope it won't be one of those clocks like
black-marble monuments with a round gilt
eye in it. I expect the cowboys laugh at
both these marriages. But they rather like /
them. They make a lark, and they never
do dislike anything they can laugh at. They
certainly all look twice as amiably at me
when we meet about the place since they
knew I was going to be married. And
Ginger finds them so friendly and pleasant
I expect she thinks she might, if she had
liked, have married the lot. But that's dif-
ferent. I daresay you notice that I write
more cheerfully, now it is settled. Yes, I do.
I like him a great deal more than at first.
It began when he gave in about what you
wanted. I really believe I shall make him
happy and I fancy I think of that more I
mean less of his making me happy. And,
Mariquita, it is good of me to have wanted
you to be let alone to be a nun if you thought
it right, because, oh dear, how I should like
245
MARIQUITA
you to be living near or at the next range!
Before I got to know you, it was just the
opposite. I hoped you'd get a husband of
your own and quit; I did. I thought you'd
hate your father marrying again, and (if
you stayed on here) would be looking dis-
approval all day long, and perhaps I
thought you would not be best pleased at
not getting all his money when he died. (I
think when people go to Confession they
ought to confess things like that. Do they?)
Oh, Mariquita, you will be missed. But
I'd rather miss you, and know you were
being what you felt yourself called away
to, than think I had helped to have you in-
terfered with. . . ."
Mariquita, reading Sarella's letter, felt
something new in her life, something
strangely moving, that filled her eyes and
heart with something also new happy
tears. The free gift of tenderness came
newly to her; and, it may be, she had least
of all looked for it from Sarella.
" 'Do people/ she quoted to herself from
Sarella herself, 'confess these things?/ I
will, anyway."
246
MARIQUITA
It hurt her to think that she who so loved
justice and charity, must have been both
uncharitable and unjust.
But can we agree? Had not Sarella's
unforeseen tenderness been her own gift to
her? Had Sarella brought tenderness with
her from the East?
At the stranger's first coming Mariquita
had not judged but felt her, and her feeling
(of which she herself knew very little) had
been instinctively correct while it lasted.
247
CHAPTER XXXV.
OF course Mariquita kept her promise
of being present at her father's mar-
riage. It had never occurred to her
that she could be absent; it was a duty of
respect that she owed to him, and a duty of
fellow- womanhood that she owed to Sarella.
It amused her a little to hear that a cer-
tain Mrs. Rane was to be present, in a sort
of maternal quality, and that Mr. Kane was
to give the bride away as a sort of official
father. Mr. Kane might have seen Sarella
a dozen times in the parlor of the convent,
which she was much given to frequent.
Mrs. Kane had, so far as Mariquita was
aware, never seen her at all except at
Mass.
They were Kentuckians who had moved
west some twelve years earlier than Sarella
herself, and, though they had not made a
fortune, were sufficiently well off to be
248
MARIQUITA
rather leading members of the congregation.
Mrs. Kane's most outstanding characteristic
was a genius for organizing bazaars, on a
scale of ever-increasing importance; the
first had been for the purchase of a har-
monium, the last had been to raise funds for
a new wing to the Convent; all her friends
had prophesied failure for the first; no one
had dared predict anything but dazzling
success for the last. Mr. Kane was not less
remarkable for his phenomenal success in
the matter of whist-drives and raffles. He
would raffle the nose off your face if you
would let him, and hand over an astonish-
ing sum to the church when he had done it,
with the most exquisite satisfaction that the
proceeding was not strictly legal.
Both the Kanes were extremely amusing,
and no one could decide which was the more
good-natured of the two. Of week-day
afternoons Mrs. Kane was quite sumptu-
ously attired, Mr. Kane liked to be rather
shabby even on Sundays at Mass, which
caused him to be generally reported some-
what more affluent than he really was. He
had always been supposed to be "about
249
MARIQUITA
fifty," whereas Mrs. Kane had, ever since
her arrival, spoken of herself as "on the
sensible side of thirty."
At Sarella's wedding Mrs. Kane's mag-
nificence deeply impressed the cowboys;
and Mr. Kane's elaborate paternity towards
the bride, whom he only knew by her dress,
would have deceived if it had been possible
the very elect; they were not precisely that
and it did not deceive, though it hugely
delighted them.
"I swear he's crying!" whispered Pete
Rugger to Larry Burke. "He cried just like
that in the play when Mrs. Hooger ran
away with her own husband that represented
the hero."
"Well," said Larry, "a man can't help
his feelings."
He was secretly wondering if Mr. Kane
would give away Ginger he would do it
so much better than Jack.
Mrs. Kane affected no tears. She had the
air of serenely parting with a daughter, for
her own good, to an excellent, wealthy hus-
band whom she had found for her, and of
being ready to do as much for the rest of
250
MARIQUITA
her many daughters Mr. and Mrs. Kane
were childless.
Perhaps this attitude on her part suited
better with her resplendent costume than it
would have suited her husband's black
attire which he kept for funerals.
Little was lost on the cowboys, and they
did not fail to note that the gray which of
recent years had been invading the "Boss's"
hair had disappeared.
"In the distance he don't look a lot older
than Gore," Pete Rugger declared to his
neighbor.
Gore supported Don Joaquin as "best"
or groomsman.
It was significant that on Mariquita's ap-
pearance no spoken comment was made by
any of the cowboys, though to each of them
she was the most absorbing figure. Her
father had fetched her from Loretto three
days before the wedding, and at the Con-
vent had been introduced to a learned-look-
ing but agreeable ecclesiastic who was a
rector of a college for lay youths.
Don Joaquin, much interested, had plied
the reverend pundit with inquiries con-
251
MARIQUITA
cerning this seat of learning, not forgetting
particular inquisition as to the terms.
On their conclusion he took notes in writ-
ing of all the replies and declared that it
sounded exactly what he would choose for
his own son.
"I would like," he said, with a simplicity
that rather touched the rector, "that my lad
should grow up with more education than
I ever had."
"Your son," surmised the rector, "would
be younger than his sister?"
"He would," Don Joaquin admitted,
without condescending upon particulars.
252
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WHEN Gore next saw Mariquita in
public she herself was dressed as
a bride. It was a little more than a
year later. After her return to Loretto she
remained there about three weeks, at the
end of which she went home to the range
for a week. Her parents (as Don Joaquin
insisted on describing himself and Sarella)
had returned from their wedding trip, and
she could see that the marriage was a suc-
cess. The two new servants were installed,
and Ginger was now Mrs. Lawrence Burke
and absent on her wedding journey.
Mariquita's father made more of her
than of old, and inwardly resolved to make
up to "her brother" for any shortcomings
there might have been in her case.
Sarella was unfeignedly glad to have her
at home, and looked forward sadly to her
final departure. Of one thing she was re-
253
MARIQUITA
solved that Mariquita should be taken all
the way to her "Carmel" in California by
both "her parents." And, of course, she got
her own way.
The extreme beauty of the Convent and
its surroundings, the glory of the climate,
the brilliance of its light, the splendor of
the blue and gold of sky and hills, half
blinded Sarella to the rigor of the life Mari-
quita was entering till the moment of
actual farewell came. Then her tears fell,
far more plentifully than Mr. Kane's at her
own wedding.
Still she admitted that the nuns were as
cheerful as the sky, and wondered if she
had ever heard more happy laughter than
theirs as they sat on the floor, with Mari-
quita in their midst, behind the grille in the
"speak-room." As a postulant Mariquita
did not wear the habit, but only a sort of
cloak over her own dress ; her glorious hair
was not yet cut off.
Don Joaquin did not see the nuns, as did
Sarella, with the curtains of the grille
drawn back. It seemed to him that the 'big
spikes of the grille were turned the wrong
254
MARIQUITA
way, for he could not imagine anyone desir-
ing to get forcibly in. He watched every-
thing, fully content to take all for granted
as the regulation and proper thing, without
particularly understanding any of it It
gave him considerable satisfaction to hear
that Saint Theresa was a Spaniard, and he
thought it sensible of Mariquita to join a
Spanish order. He had no misgivings as
to her finding the life hard he did not
know in the least what the life was, and
made no inquisition ; he had a general idea
that women did not feel fastings and so
forth. He would have felt it very much
himself if he had had to rise with the dawn
and go fasting till midday, instead of begin-
ning the day with a huge meal of meat.
The old life at the range, as it had been
when Sarella first came, was never resumed.
She was determined that its complete isola-
tion should be changed, and she changed it
with wonderful rapidity and success. The
friendly and kind-hearted Kanes helped her
a great deal. They had insisted, at the wed-
ding itself, that the bride and bridegroom
should pay them a very early visit, after
255
MARIQUITA
their return from their wedding-journey.
It was paid immediately on their getting
back from California, and it lasted several
days. During those days their host and
hostess took care that they should meet all
the leading Catholics of the place, to whom
Sarella made herself pleasant, administer-
ing to them (in her husband's disconcerted
presence) pressing invitations to come out
to the range: though they all had autos it
was not to be expected that they would come
so far for a cup of tea, and they came for a
night, and often for two or three nights.
Naturally the Kanes came first and they
spoke almost with solemnity (as near sol-
emnity as either could attain) of social
duty. It was an obligation on all Catholics
to hang together, and hanging together ob-
viously implied frequent mutual hospitali-
ties. Don Joaquin had found that the prac-
tice of his religion did imply obligations
and duties never realized before, and he was
a little confused as to their relative strict-
ness. On the whole, he succumbed to what
Sarella intended, with a compliance that
might have surprised Mariquita had she
MARIQUITA
been there to see. Some of the cowboys
were of the opinion that the old man was
breaking. He was only being (not immedi-
ately) broken in. A man of little over fifty,
of iron constitution, does not "break," how-
ever old he may appear to five-and- twenty
or thirty. The sign that appeared most
ominous to these young men was that "the
Boss" betrayed symptoms of less rigid stingi-
ness; there was nothing really alarming
about the symptoms. Such as they were
they were due, not so much to any decay in
the patient's constitution, as to a little
awakening of conscience referable, such as
it was, to the late-begun practices of con-
fession. Old Jack was made foreman, at
an increase of pay by no means dazzling,
but quite satisfactory to himself, who had
not expected any such promotion. Larry
and Ginger settled, about two miles from
the homestead, in a small house which they
were permitted by Don Joaquin to build.
Two of the cowboys found themselves wives
whom they had first seen in church at
Sarella's wedding; these young ladies, it
appeared, had severally resolved that under
257
MARIQUITA
no circumstances would they marry any but
Catholics, and their lovers accepted the
position, largely on the ground that a re-
ligion good enough for Miss Mariquita
would be good enough for them.
"Too good," grimly observed one of their
comrades who was not then engaged to
marry a Catholic.
Don Joaquin allowed the two who were
married to have a little place built for them-
selves on the range. And as the brides were
each plentifully provided with sisters it
seems likely that soon Don Joaquin will have
quite a numerous tenantry. It also appears
probable that a priest will presently be resi-
dent at the range, for one has already en-
tered into correspondence with Don Joaquin
on the subject. Having recently recovered
from a "chest trouble," he has been advised
that the air of the high prairies holds out
the best promise of continued life and avoid-
ance of tuberculosis. There is another
scheme afoot of which 7 perhaps, Don
Joaquin as yet knows nothing. It began in
the active mind of Sister Aquinas, and its
present stage consists of innumerable pray-
258
MARIQUITA
ers on her part that she may be able to
establish out on the range a little hospital,
served by nuns, for the resuscitation of
patients threatened with consumption. She
sees in the invalid priest a chaplain plainly
provided as an answer to prayer; Mr. and
Mrs. Kane, her confidants, see in the scheme
immense occasion for unbridled bazaars and
whist drives. All friends of Mr. Kane meet
him on their guard, uncertain which of
their possessions he may have it in his eye
to raffle. Even as I write, I hear that an-
other answer to the dear nun's prayers looms
into sight. A widowed sister of her own,
wealthly, childless and of profuse gener-
osity, writes to her, and the burden of her
song is that she would not mind (her chest
having always been weak) going to the pro-
posed sanatorium herself, at all events for a
few years, and bringing with her Doctor
Malone: Dr. Malone is of unparalleled
genius in his profession, but tuberculous,
and it is transparently plain that his kind
and affluent friend wishes to finance him and
remove him to an "anti-tutierculous air."
It seems to me certain that Sister
259
MARIQUITA
Aquinas's prayers will very soon be
answered, and the sanatorium be a fact. She
has, I know, mentally christened it already,
"Mariquita" is to be its name.
260
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MARIQUITA'S profession took
place fourteen months after her
father's second marriage. Her
brother was already an accomplished fact;
he was, indeed, six weeks old and present
(not alone) on the occasion. He was start-
lingly like his father, a circumstance not
adverse to his future comeliness as a man,
but which made him a little portentous as
a baby. Don Joaquin on the day of his birth
wrote to the rector of the college whom he
had met at Loretto with many additional
inquiries. Mariquita first beheld her brother
when, fortunately, his father and her own
was not present, for she laughed terribly at
the great little black creature with eyes and
nose at present much too big. He looked
about fifty and had all the solemnity of that
distant period of his life.
"Isn't he a thorough Spaniard?" Sarella
261
MARIQUITA
demanded, pretending to pout discontent-
edly. But Mariquita saw very clearly that
she was as proud of her baby as Don
Joaquin himself. Since his birth Sarella's
letters had been full of him, and she thought
of his clothes now. She had persuaded her
husband, as a thank-offering for his son, to
give a considerable piece of ground, in a
beautiful situation, not a mile from the
homestead, as the site of the future Church,
Convent, and Sanatorium.
The beautiful and bright chapel of the
Carmelite convent was free of people; two
prie-dieus, side by side, had been placed at
the entrance of the church. Towards these
Mariquita, dressed as a bride, walked, lean-
ing on her father's arm. She had always
possessed the rare natural gift of walking
beautifully. No one in the church had ever
seen a bride more beautiful, more radiant,
or more distinguished by unlearned grace
and dignity.
Among the congregation, but nearest to
262
MARIQUITA
the two prie-dieus, knelt Sarella and Mr.
Gore.
Behind their grille the nuns were singing
the ancient Latin hymn of invocation to the
Holy Ghost.
Presently the Archbishop in noble words
set out the Church's doctrine and attitude
concerning "Holy Religion," especially in
reference to the Orders called Contempla-
tive, for no Catholic Order of religion can
be anything but contemplative, in its own
degree and fashion. He dwelt upon the
thing called Vocation, and the vocation of
every human soul to heaven, each by its own
road of service, love, and obedience; then
upon the more exceptional vocation of
some, whereby God calls them to come to
Him by roads special and less thronged by
travellers to the Golden Gate ; pointing out
that the Church, unwavering guardian of
Christian liberty, in every age insisted on
the freedom of such souls to accept that
Divine summons as the rest are free to go
to Him by the ways of His more ordinary
and usual Providence. He spoke of the
Church's prudence in this as in all else, and
263
MARIQUITA
of the courses enjoined by her to enable a
sound judgment to be made as to the reality
of such exceptional vocation; and so of
postulancy, novitiate, and profession.
His words ended, the "bride" and her
father rose from their knees and after (on
his part the usual genuflection) and on hers
a slow and profound reverence, they turned
and walked down the church as they had
come, she leaning upon his arm. After them
the whole congregation moved out of the
chapel, and went behind them to the high
wooden gates behind which was the large
garden of the "enclosure." Grouped before
those gates all waited, listening to the nuns
slowly advancing towards them from the
other side, out of sight, but audible, for they
were singing as they came. Slowly the
heavy gates opened inwards, and the Car-
melites could be seen. In front stood one
carrying a great wooden crucifix. The faces
of none of them could be seen, for their
long black veils hung, before and behind,
down to the level of their knees, leaving
only a little of the brown habit visible.
Mariquita embraced her father, and
264
MARIQUITA
Sarella spoke a low word to Gore, who
stood on one side of Sarella, went forward
with a low reverence towards the Crucifix,
kissed its feet, and then turned; with a pro-
found curtesy she greeted those who had
gathered to see her entrance into Holy Re-
ligion, and took her farewell of "the
world," the gates closed slowly, and among
her Sisters she went back to the chapel.
The congregation returned thither also.
Many were softly weeping; poor Sarella
was crying bitterly. Her husband was not
unmoved, but his grave dignity was not
broken by tears. Gore could not have
spoken, but there was no occasion for
speech.
Behind the nun's grille in the chapel the
little community was gathered, Mariquita
among them, no longer in her bride's dress,
but in the brown habit without scapular or
leathern belt.
The Archbishop advanced close to the
grille and put to her many questions. What
did she ask? Profession in the order of holy
religion of Mount Carmel. Was this of her
own free desire? Yes. Had any coerced or
265
MARIQUITA
urged her to it? No one. Did she believe
that God Himself had called her to it? Yes.
And many other questions.
Then the Archbishop blessed the scapu-
lar, and it was put upon her by her Sisters,
as in the case of the belt. So with each
article of her nun's dress, sandals and veil.
Thereafter, upon ashes, she lay upon the
ground covered by a Pall, and De Prof undis
was sung.
So the solemn rite proceeded to its end.
Afterwards the new Religious sat in the
parlor of the grille, or "speak-room," and
the witnesses kept it full for a long time, as
in succession they went to talk to her where
she sat behind the grille.
The last of all was Gore. He only went
in as the last of the groups came out.
"I was afraid you might not come," Mari-
quita told him. "Thank you for coming.
If you had not come J should have been
afraid that you felt it sad. There is nothing
sad about it, is there?"
"Indeed nothing."
There was something in her voice that
266
MARIQUITA
told him she was gayer than of old, happy
she had always been. Though she smiled
radiantly she did not laugh as she said :
"I know the ceremonies are rather har-
rowing to the lookers-on. (I heard some
one sob dear Sarella, I'm afraid.) But
not to us. One is not sad because one has
been allowed to do the one thing one wanted
to do? Is one?"
"Not when it is a great, good thing like
this."
"Ah, how kind you are! I always told
you you were the kindest person I had ever
met. Yes the thing is great and good only
you must help me to do it in God's own
way, in the way He wishes it done. You
will not get tired of helping, by your pray-
ers for me, will you?"
"Of course I never shall."
Presently she said, not laughing now
either, but with a ripple like the laughter
of running water in her voice, "You can't
think how I like it all, how amusing some
of it is! One has to do Manual labor'
washing pots and pans, and cleaning floors;
I believe it is supposed to be a little humil-
267
MARIQUITA
iating, and meant to keep us humble. And
you know how used I am to it. I'm afraid
of its making me conceited I do it so much
better than the Sisters who never did any-
thing like that at home. Mother Prioress is
always afraid, too, that I shan't eat enough,
and that I shall say too many prayers. I
fell into a pond we have in our garden, and
she was terrified, thinking I must be
drowned; no one could drown in it without
standing on her head. I was trying to get a
water-lily, so I fell in and came out fright-
fully muddy and smelly, too ... You
must be kind to Sarella; she is so good, and
has been so good to me. I shall never forget
what you and she did for me. Write to her
if you go away, and tell her all about
yourself."
"What there is to tell."
"Oh, there will be lots. You are not such
a bad letter-writer as that . . ."
So they talked, the small, trivial, kindly
talk that belongs to friendship, and showed
him that Mariquita was more Mariquita
than ever, now she was Sister Consuelo.
Her father liked the Spanish name, without
268
MARIQUITA
greatly realizing its reference to Our Lady
of Good Counsel.
THS END
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EIGHT-MINUTE SERMONS. DE- SERMONS ON OUR BLESSED LADY.
MOUY. 2 vols., net, $4.00. FLYNN. net, $2.50.
HOMILIES ON THE COMMON OF SERMONS ON THE BLESSED SAC-
SAINTS. BONOMELLI-BYRNE. 2 vols., RAMENT. SCHEURER-LASANCE. net,
net, $4.50. $2.50.
HOMILIES ON THE EPISTLES AND SERMONS ON THE CHIEF CHRIS-
GOSPELS. BONOMELLI-BYRNE. 4 vols., TIAN VIRTUES. HUNOLT-WIRTH.
net, $9.00. net, $2.75.
MASTER'S WORD, THE, IN THE SERMONS ON THE DUTIES OF
EPISTLES AND GOSPELS. FLYNN. CHRISTIANS. HUNOLT-WIRTH.
2 vols., net, $4.00. net, $2.75.
POPULAR SERMONS ON THE CAT- SERMONS ON THE FOUR LAST
ECfflSM. BAMBTRG-THURSTON, S.J. THINGS. HUNOLT-WIRTH. net&.js.
3 vols., net, $8.50. SERMONS ON THE SEVEN DEADLY
SERMONS. CANON SHEEHAN. net, *SINS. HUNOLT-WIRTH. net, $2.75.
$3.00. SERMONS ON THE VIRTUE AND
SERMONS FOR CHILDREN'S THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE.
MASSES. FRASSINETTI-LINGS. net, HUNOLT-WIRTH. net, $2.75.
$2.50. SERMONS ON THE MASS, THE SAC-
SERMONS FOR THE SUNDAYS RAMENTS AND THE SACRA-
AND CHIEF FESTIVALS OF THE MENTALS. FLYNN. we*, $2.75.
V. HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, HAGIOLOGY, TRAVEL
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ST. IGNA- REFORMATION. COBBETT-GAS-
TIUS LOYOLA. O'CONNOR, S.J. QUET. net, $1.25.
net,$i.7S- HISTORY OF THE MASS. O'BRIEN.
CAMHXUS DE LELLIS. By a net, $2.00.
SISTER OF MERCY, net, $1.75. HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH IN
CHILD'S LIFE OF ST. JOAN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
ARC. MANNTX. net, $1.50. KEMPF, S.J. net, $2.75.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF LIFE OF ST. MARGARET MARY
THE CATHOLIC SCHOOL SYS- ALACOQUE. Illustrated. BOUGAUD.
TEM IN THE UNITED STATES. net, $2.75.
BURNS, C.S.C. net, $2.50. LIFE OF CHRIST. BUSINGER-BREN-
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC NAN. Illustrated. Half morocco, gut
CHURCH. BRUECK. 2 vols., net, edges, net, $15.00.
$5.50. LIFE OF CHRIST. Illustrated. Bus-
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC INGER-MULLETT. net, $3-50.
CHURCH. BUSINGER-BRENNAN. net, LIFE OF CHRIST. COCHEM. net,
$3 SO $1 25
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC LIFE OF ST. IGNATIUS LOYOLA.
LE
CHURCH. BUSINGER-BRENNAN. GENELLI, S.J. net, $1.25.
net, H$o.7S. '* LIFE OF MADEMOISELLE
HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT GRAS. net, $1.25
LIFE OF POPE PIUS X. Illustrated.
net, $3.50.
LIFE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN.
THE SAINTS
FOR CHILDREN. BERTHOLD. net,
LITTLE PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE
SAINTS. With 400 illustrations.
net, $2.00.
LIVES OF THE SAINTS. BUTLER.
net, $1.25.
LOURDES. CLARKE, SJ. net, $1.25.
MARY THE QUEEN. By a Relig-
ious, net, $0.60.
MIDDLE AGES, THE. SHAHAN. net,
$3.00.
MILL TOWN PASTOR, A. CONROY,
SJ. net. $1.75.
NAMES THAT LIVE IN CATHOLIC
HEARTS. SADLIER. net, $1.25.
OUR OWN ST. RITA. CORCORAN,
O.S.A. net, $1.50.
PATRON SAINTS FOR CATHOLIC
YOUTH. MANNTX. 3 vols. Each,
PICTORIAL LIVES OF THE SAINTS.
With nearly 400 illustrations and over
600 pages, net, $5.00.
POPULAR LIFE OF ST. TERESA.
L'ABBE JOSEPH, net, $1.25.
PRINCIPLES ORIGIN AND ES-
TABLISHMENT OF THE CATH-
OLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IN THE
UNITED STATES. BURNS, C.S.C.
net, $2.50.
RAMBLES IN CATHOLIC LANDS.
BARRETT, O.S.B. Illustrated, net,
ROMA!
A. Pagan Subterranean and Mod-
ern Rome in Word and Picture. By
REV. ALBERT KUHN, O.S.B., D.D.
Preface by CARDINAL GIBBONS. 617
pages. 744 illustrations. 48 full-page
inserts, 3 plans of Rome in colors.
8i x 12 inches. Red im. leather, gold
side, net, $15.00.
ROMAN CURIA AS IT NOW EXISTS.
MARTIN, SJ. net, $2.50.
ST. ANTHONY. WARD, net, $1.25.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI. DUBOIS,
S.M. fKf,$X.25.
ST. JOAN OF ARC. LYNCH, SJ. Illus-
trated, net, $2.75.
ST. JOHN BERCHMANS. DE-
LEHAYE, S J.-SEMPLE, S J. net, $1.50.
SAINTS AND PLACES. By
JOHN AYSCOUGH. Illustrated, net,
SHORT LIVES OF THE SAINTS.
DONNELLY, net, $0.90.
STORY OF THE DIVINE CHILD.
Told for Children. LINGS, net, $0.60.
STORY OF THE ACTS OF THE
APOSTLES. LYNCH, SJ. Illus-
trated, net, $2.75.
WOMEN OF CATHOLICITY. SAD-
LIER. net, $1.25.
VI. JUVENILES
FATHER FINN'S BOOKS.
BOBBY ^N MOVIELAND.
FACING DANGER.
HIS LUCKIEST YEAR. A Sequel to
" Lucky Bob."
LUCKY BOB.
PERCY WYNN; OR, MAKING A
BOY OF HIM.
TOMPLAYFAIR; OR, MAKING A
START.
CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT; OR, HOW
THE PROBLEM WAS SOLVED.
HARRY DEE; OR, WORKING IT
OUT.
ETHELRED PRESTON; OR, THE
ADVENTURES OF A NEW-
COMER.
THE BEST FOOT FORWARD;
AND OTHER STORIES.
CUPID OF CAMPION.
THAT FOOTBALL GAME, AND
WHAT CAME OF IT.
THE FAIRY OF THE SNOWS.
THAT OFFICE BOY.
HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEAR-
ANCE.
MOSTLY BOYS. SHORT STORIES.
FATHER SPALDING'S BOOKS.
Each, net, $1.50.
SIGNALS FROM THE BAY TREE.
HELD IN THE EVERGLADES.
AT THE FOOT OF THE SAND-
HILLS.
THE CAVE BY THE BEECH
FORK.
THE SHERIFF OF THE BEECH
FORK.
THE CAMP BY COPPER RIVER.
THE RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND.
THE MARKS OF THE BEAR
CLAWS.
THE OLD MILL ON THE WITH-
ROSE.
THE SUGAR CAMP AND AJTER.
3
ADVENTURE WITHTHE APACHES.
FERRY, net, $0,60.
ALTHEA. NIRDLINGER. net, $1.00.
AS GOLD IN THE FURNACE.
COPUS, S.J. net, $1.50.
AS TRUE AS COLD. MANNK. net,
$0.60.
AT THE FOOT OF THE SAND-
HILLS. SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
BELL FOUNDRY. SCHACHING, net,
$0.60.
BERKLEYS, THE. WIGHT. net,
$0.60.
BEST FOOT FORWARD, THE. FINN,
S.J. net, $1.50.
BETWEEN FRIENDS. AUMERLE.
net, $1.00.
BISTOURI. MELANDRI. net, $0.60.
BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE.
TAGGART. net, $0.60.
BOBBY IN MOVIELAND. FINN, S.J.
BOBO'LINK. WAGGAMAN. net, $0.60.
BROWNIE AND I. AUMERLE. w,$i.oo.
BUNT AND BILL. MULHOLLAND.
net, $0.60.
BY BRANSCOME RIVER. TAGGART.
net, $0.60.
CAMP BY COPPER RIVER. SPALD-
ING, S.J. net, $1.50.
CAPTAIN TED. WAGGAMAN. n,$i.25.
CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK.
SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
CHILDREN OF CUPA. MANNIX. net,
$0.60.
CHILDREN OF THE LOG CABIN.
DELAMARE. net, $1.00.
CLARE LORAINE. " LEE." n, $1.00.
CLAUDE LIGHTFOOT. FINN, S.J.
COBRA'ISLAND. BOYTON, s.j. net,
$1.15.
CUPA REVISITED. MANNTX. net,
$0.60.
CUPID OF CAMPION. FINN, S.J.
net, $1.50.
DADDY DAN. WAGGAMAN. net,
$0.60.
DEAR FRIENDS. NIRDLINGER. net,
$1.00.
DIMPLING'S SUCCESS. MULHOL-
LAND. net, $0.60.
ETHELRED PRESTON. FINN, S.J.
net, $1.50.
EVERY-DAY GIRL, AN. CROWLEY.
net, $0.60.
FACING DANGER. FINN, S.J. net,
$i- SO-
FAIRY OF THE SNOWS. FINN, S.J.
net, $1.50.
FINDING OF TONY. WAGGAMAN.
net, $1.25.
FIVE BIRDS IN A NEST. DELAMARE.
net, $1.00.
FIVE O'CLOCK STORIES. By a
Religious, net, $1.00.
FLOWER OF THE FLOCK. EGAN.
net, $1.50.
FOR THE WHITE ROSE. HINKSON.
net, $0.60.
FRED'S LITTLE DAUGHTER.
SMITH, net, $0.60.
FREDDY CARR'S ADVENTURES.
GARROLD, S.J. net, $1.00.
FREDDY CARR AND HIS FRIENDS.
GARROLD, S.J. net, $1.00.
GOLDEN LILY, THE. HINKSON. net,
$0.60.
GREAT CAPTAIN, THE. HINKSON.
net, $0.60.
HALDEMAN CHILDREN, THE.
MANNTX. net, $0.60.
HARMONY FLATS. WHITMIRE. net,
$1.00.
HARRY DEE. FINN, S.J. net, $1.50.
HARRY RUSSELL. COPUS, S.J. net,
HEIlToF DREAMS, AN. O'MALLEY.
net, $0.60.
HELD IN THE EVERGLADES.
SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEAR-
ANCE. FINN, S.J. net, $1.50.
HIS LUCKIEST YEAR. FINN, S.J.
net, $1.50.
HOSTAGE OF WAR, A. BONESTEEL.
net, $0.60.
HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY.
EGAN. net, $1.00.
IN QUEST OF ADVENTURE. MAN-
NIX, net, $0.60.
IN QUEST OF THE GOLDEN-
CHEST. BARTON, net, $1.00.
JACK. By a Religious, H.C.J. net,
$0.60.
JACK-O'LANTERN. WAGGAMAN.
net, $0.60.
JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE.
TAGGART. net, $1.00.
JUNIORS OF ST. BEDE'S. BRYSON.
net, $t.oo.
JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First
Series, net, $i.<o.
JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Second
Series, net, $1.50.
KLONDIKE PICNIC, A. DONNELLY.
net, $1.00.
LEGENDS AND STORIES OF THE
HOLY CHILD JESUS. Lurz. net,
$1.00.
LITTLE APOSTLE ON CRUTCHES.
DELAMARE. net $0.60.
LITTLE GIRL FROM BACK EAST.
ROBERTS, net, $o.Go.
LITTLE LADY OF THE HALL.
RYEUAN. net, $0.60.
LITTLE MARSHALLS AT THE
LAKE. NIXON-ROULET. net,$i.oo.
LITTLE MISSY. WAGGAMAN. net,
$0.60.
LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCAR-
LET. TAGGART. net, $1.50.
LUCKY BOB. FINN, S.J. net.ji.so.
MADCAP SET AT ST. ANNE'S. BRU-
NOWE. net, $0.60.
MAD KNIGHT, THE. SCHACHING.
net, $0.60.
MAKING OF MORTLAKE. COPUS,
S.J. net, $1.50.
MAN FROM NOWHERE. SADLIER.
net, $1.00.
MARKS OF THE BEAR CLAWS.
SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
MARY TRACY'S FORTUNE. SAD-
LIER. net, $0.60.
MILLY AVELING. SMITH. net, $1.00.
MIRALDA. JOHNSON, net, $0.60.
MORE FIVE O'CLOCK STORIES.
By a Religious, net, $1.00.
MOSTLY BOYS. FINN, S.J. net, $1.50.
MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. SADLIER.
net, $0.60.
MYSTERY OF HORNBY HALL.
SADLIER. net, $1.00.
MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. BARTON.
net, $1.00.
NAN NOBODY. WAGGAMAN. net,
$0.60.
NED RIEDER. WEHS. net, $1.00.
NEW SCHOLAR AT ST. ANNE'S.
BRUNO WE. net, $1.00.
OLD CHARLMONT'S SEED-BED.
SMITH, net, $0.60.
OLD MILL ON THE WITHROSE.
SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
ON THE OLD CAMPING GROUND.
MANNIX. net, $1.00.
PANCHO AND PANCHITA. MAN-
NIX., net, $0.60.
PAULINE ARCHER. SADLIER. net,
$0.60.
PERCY WYNN. FINN, S.J. net, $1.50.
PERIL OF DIONYSIO. MANNIX.
net, $0.60.
PETRONILLA. DONNELLY. net,
$1.00.
PICKLE AND PEPPER. DORSEY.
net, $1.50.
PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. CAR-
NOT. net, $0.60
PLAYWATER PLOT, THE. WAGGA-
MAN. net, $1.25.
POLLY DAY'S ISLAND. ROBERTS.
net, $r.oo.
POVERINA. BUCKENHAM. net, $1.00.
QUEEN'S PAGE, THE. HINKSON. net,
$0.60.
QUEEN'S PROMISE, THE. WAGGA-
MAN. net, $1.25.
QUEST OF MARY SELWYN. CLEM-
ENTIA. net, $1.50.
RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. SPALD-
ING, S.J. net, $1.50.
RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS.
BONESTEEL. net, $0.60.
ROMANCE OF THE SILVER SHOON.
BEARNE, S.J. net, $1.50.
ST. CUTHBERT'S. COPTIC S.J. net,
SANDY JOE. WAGGAMAN. net, $1.25.
SEA-GULL'S ROCK. SANDEAU. net,
$0.60.
SEVEN LITTLE MARSHALLS.
NIXON-ROULET. net, $0.60.
SHADOWS LIFTED. COPUS, S.J.
net, $1.50.
SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK.
SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
SHIPMATES. WAGGAMAN. net, $1.25.
SIGNALS FROM THE BAY TREE.
SPALDING, S.J. net, $1.50.
STRONG ARM OF AVALON. WAG-
GAMAN. net, $1.25.
SUGAR CAMP AND AFTER. SPALD-
ING, S.J. net, $1.50.
SUMMER AT WOODVILLE. SAD-
LIER. net, $0.60.
TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE
MIDDLE AGES. DE CAPELLA. net,
$1.00.
TALISMAN, THE. SADLIER. net,$i.oo.
TAMING OF POLLY. DORSEY. net,
THATFOOTBALL GAME. FINN, S.J.
net, $1.50.
THAT OFFISE BOY. FINN, S.J. net,
THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY
ONE. TAGGART. net, $0.60.
TOLD IN THE TWTLI6HT. SALOME.
net, $1.00.
TOM LOSELY; BOY. COPUS, S.J.
TOM PLAYFAIR. FINN, S.J. net,
Toirs'LUCK-POT. WAGGAMAN. net,
$0.60.
TOORALLADDY. WALSH. ne/,$o.6o.
TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE.
WAGGAMAN. net, $1.25.
TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUN- UPS AND DOWNS OF MARJORIE.
TAIN. TAGGART. net, $1.00. WAGGAMAN. net, $0.60.
TWO LITTLE GIRLS MACK, net,
$0.60.
UNCLE FRANK'S MARY. CLEMEN-
TIA. net, $1.50.
VIOLIN MAKER. SMITH, net, $o.6q
WINNETOU, THE APACHE
KNIGHT. TAGGART. not, $1.00.
YOUNG COLOR GUARD. BONE-
STEEL, net, $0.60.
VII. NOVELS
ISABEL C. CLARKE'S GREAT NOV- DION AND THE SIBYLS. KEON.
ELS. Each, net, $2.00. net, $1.25.
THE LIGHT ON THE LAGOON. ELDER MISS AINSBOROUGH, THE
THE POTTER'S HOUSE.
TRESSIDER'S SISTER.
URSULA FINCH.
THE ELSTONES.
EUNICE.
LADY TRENT'S DAUGHTER.
CHILDREN OF EVE.
THE DEEP HEART.
WHOSE NAME IS LEGION.
FINE CLAY.
PRISONERS' YEARS.
THE REST HOUSE.
ONLY ANNE.
THE SECRET CITADEL.
BY THE BLUE RIVER.
ALBERTA: ADVENTURESS. L'ER-
MITE. net, $2.00.
BACK TO THE WORLD.
TAGGART. net, $1.25.
ELSTONES, THE. CLARKE, net,
$2.00.
EUNICE. CLARKE, net, $2.00.
FABIOLA. WISEMAN, net, $1.00.
FABIOLA'S SISTERS. CLARKE, net,
$1.25.
FATAL BEACON, THE. BRACKEL.
net, $1.25.
FAUSTULA. AYSCOUGH. net, $2.00.
FINE CLAY. CLARKE, net, $2.00.
FLAME OF THE FOREST. BISHOP.
net, $2.00.
FORGIVE AND FORGET. LINGEN.
GRAPES 2 OF THORNS. WAGGAMAN.
net, $1.25.
HEART OF A MAN. MAKER, net,
$2.00.
HEARTS OF GOLD. EDHOR. n, $1.25.
HEIRESS OF CRONENSTEIN.
HAHN-HAHN. net, $1.00.
HER BLIND TOLLY. HOLT, net,
HER FEATHER'S DAUGHTER. HTNK-
net, $2.00.
CHAMPOL.
net, $2.00.
BARRIER, THE. BAZIN. net $1.65.
BALLADS OF CHILDHOOD. Poems.
EARLS. S.J. net, $1.50.
BLACK BROTHERHOOD, THE.
GARROLO, S.J. net, $2.00.
BOND AND FREE. CONNOR, w, $1.00. ^^. ,^, v ^.^.
BUNNY'S HOUSE. WALKER, n, $2.00. HER FATHER'S SHARE. POWER.
"BUT THY LOVE AND THY net, $1.25.
GRACE." FINN, S.J. net, $1.50. HER JOURNEY'S END. COOKE.
BY THE BLUE RIVER. CLARKE. net, $1.25.
net, $2.00. IDOLS; or THE SECRET OF THE
CARROLL DARE. WAGGAMAN. net, RUE CHAUSSE D'ANTIN. DE
$1.25. NAVERY. net, $1.25.
CIRCUS-RIDER'S DAUGHTER. IN GOD'S GOOD TIME. Ross.
BRACKEL. net, $1.25. $1.00.
CLARKE, net.
net,
CHILDREN OF EVE. CLARKE, net, IN SPITE OF ALL. STANTFORTH, net,
$2.00. $1.2$.
CONNOR D'ARCY'S STRUGGLES. IN THE DAYS OF KING HAL.
BERTHOLDS. net, $1.25. TAGGART. net, $1.25.
CORINNE'S VOW. WAGGAMAN. net, IVY HEDGE, THE.
EGAN. net
$2.00.
HINK- KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS.
SON. net, $2.00. HARRISON, net, $1.25.
DEEP HEART, THE. CLARKE, net, LADY TRENT'S DAUGHTER.
$2.00. CLARKE, net, $2.00.
DENYS THE DREAMER. HINKSON. LIGHT OF HIS COUNTENANCE.
net, $2.00. HART, net, $1.00,
19
$1.25.
DAUGHTER OF KINGS, A.
PR 6003 .I3M37 1922
SMC
AYSCOUGH / JOHN,
1858-1928.
MARIQUITA : A NOVEL /
BDH-5832 (AB)
