And then, I had my own future to make--and youth is brutally selfish. I was quite friendless and unknown when I left San Francisco for the mines, at the time you entered the convent as Yerba Buena."She smiled, and made a slight impulsive gesture, as if she would have drawn nearer to him, but checked herself, still smiling, and without embarrassment. It may have been a movement of youthful camaraderie, and that occasional maternal rather than sisterly instinct which sometimes influences a young girl's masculine friendship, and elevates the favored friend to the plane of the doll she has outgrown. As he turned towards her, however, she rose, shook out her yellow dress, and said with pretty petulance:--"Then you must go so soon--and this your first and last visit as my guardian?""No one could regret that more than I," looking at her with undefined meaning.
"Yes," she said, with a tantalizing coquetry that might have suggested an underlying seriousness. "I think you HAVE lost a good deal. Perhaps, so have I. We might have been good friends in all these years. But that is past.""Why? Surely, I hope, my shortcomings with Miss Yerba Buena will not be remembered by Miss Arguello?" sail Paul, earnestly.
"Ah! SHE may be a very different person.""I hope not," said the young man, warmly. "But HOW different?""Well, she may not put herself in the way of receiving such point-blank compliments as that," said the young girl, demurely.
"Not from her guardian?"
"She will have no guardian then." She said this gravely, but almost at the same moment turned and sat down again, throwing her linked hands over her knee, and looked at him mischievously. "You see what you have lost, sir.""I see," said Paul, but with all the gravity that she had dropped.
"No; but you don't see all. I had no brother--no friend. You might have been both. You might have made me what you liked. You might have educated me far better than these teachers, or, at least given me some pride in my studies. There were so many things Iwanted to know that they couldn't teach me; so many times I wanted advice from some one that I could trust. Colonel Pendleton was very good to me when he came; he always treated me like a princess even when I wore short frocks. It was his manner that first made me think he knew my family; but I never felt as if I could tell him anything, and I don't think, with all his chivalrous respect, he ever understood me. As to the others--the Mayors--well, you may judge from Mr. Henderson. It is a wonder that I did not run away or do something desperate. Now, are you not a LITTLE sorry?"Her voice, which had as many capricious changes as her manner, had been alternately coquettish, petulant, and serious, had now become playful again. But, like the rest of her sex, she was evidently more alert to her surroundings at such a moment than her companion, for before he could make any reply, she said, without apparently looking, "But there is a deputation coming for you, Mr. Hathaway.
You see, the case is hopeless. You never would be able to give to one what is claimed by the many."Paul glanced down the rose-alley, and saw that the deputation in question was composed of the Mayor, Mr. Woods, a thin, delicate-looking woman,--evidently Mrs. Woods,--and Milly. The latter managed to reach the summer-house first, with apparently youthful alacrity, but really to exchange, in a single glance, some mysterious feminine signal with Yerba. Then she said with breathless infelicity:--"Before you two get bored with each other now, I must tell you there's a chance of you having more time. Aunty has promised to send off a note excusing you to the Reverend Mother, if she can persuade Mr. Hathaway to stay over to-night. But here they are.
[To Yerba] Aunty is most anxious, and won't hear of his going."Indeed, it seemed as if Mrs. Woods was, after a refined fashion, most concerned that a distinguished visitor like Mr. Hathaway should have to use her house as a mere accidental meeting-place with his ward, without deigning to accept her hospitality. She was reinforced by Mr. Woods, who enunciated the same idea with more masculine vigor; and by the Mayor, who expressed his conviction that a slight of this kind to Rosario would be felt in the Santa Clara valley. "After dinner, my dear Hathaway," concluded Mr.
Woods, "a few of our neighbors may drop in, who would be glad to shake you by the hand--no formal meeting, my boy--but, hang it!
THEY expect it."
Paul looked around for Yerba. There was really no reason why he shouldn't accept, although an hour ago the idea had never entered his mind. Yet, if he did, he would like the girl to know that it was for HER sake. Unfortunately, far from exhibiting any concern in the matter, she seemed to be preoccupied with Milly, and only the charming back of her head was visible behind Mrs. Woods. He accepted, however, with a hesitation that took some of the graciousness from his yielding, and a sense that he was giving a strange importance to a trivial circumstance.