failed to hold
up his hand and say "Present." We both thought that his hour had
struck and you may imagine my horror and remorse. Well, they began a
cell-to-cell canvass, but when they flashed the lantern on us they
shouted with joyful triumph. They were not executioners but rescuers!
They were revolutionists, come to save Emilio and his papa, the
General. That gentleman arrived on the run, panting, demanding his
son. Alarums and excursions! Explanations. I think the bitterest
moment of the whole hideous time for the poor C.E. was when "Emily's"
papa kissed him!

Sally, I'm running down like a mechanical toy,--I can hardly write
another word. I was escorted to my hotel and thence to a dawn train
for Guadalajara. The meek C.E. renewed his suit; he said I could
adopt the whole _hospicio_ if I wanted to, but I said "_Adios_" and
I think in his head, if not his heart, he was rather relieved. Poor,
dear, extremely civil engineer! His tastes are simple and his wants
are few,--just a limp, lovely lady in the background of his life,
waiting prettily for him to come home and tell her what to think.
That man doesn't want a help-meet; he wants a _harim_.

They are unwinding several thousand miles of red tape, but at the
end, like the pot of gold and the rainbow, I shall find my Dolores
Tristeza, and there will be one pair of mournful eyes the less in
this land of smiles and sobs.

_Adios_, poor, pretty, passionate, shrugging Mexico! Go with God!

I'm coming _home_, Sally _mia_!

J.

P.S. The C.E.'s days before he knew me were just a string of wooden
beads; afterward, they were a string of fire-crackers!

P.S. II. Michael Daragh is going to be frightfully pleased with me
for wiping the orphan's tear; but he'll make me see that there's just
as much poetry and more punch in wiping the orphan's nose!

CHAPTER XVII

Once, long ago, coming home from her self-imposed exile to the lean,
clean Island in Maine, Jane had dreaded, a little, her re-meeting with
Michael Daragh, but on the trip home from Mexico and California she had
no such feeling. Doubts were over and done with forever. The flight had
been for the purpose of getting perspective; perspective made her grave
Irishman, her stern St. Michael, loom up and up until he filled her
horizon. Her heart had been allowed to