iant expression of joy and release than
that which overspread the countenance of the geologist at sight of
me, and even at that instant I began to understand his emotion. It
seemed an hour before the gangplank was put down. Dolores Tristeza
held the parrot up so that she might see me. "Behold the virgin
mother of my soul!"

"Shut your ugly mouth!" shrieked the sweet bird, happily in Spanish.

"See, little mother mine," called Dolores, shaking the cage, "Santa
Catalina, the parrot of a thousand pretty talents! And here"--she
held up the hairless, squirming canine--"behold little Jose-Maria,
joy of my orphan heart!"

I got as close to her as possible and besought her to moderate her
transports until she had landed, and I was amazed and aghast and
horrified at the size of her. "But, how you've grown, Dolores!" I
stammered.

She chuckled gleefully. "They lied to thee at the _Hospicio,
Madrecita_. I was not twelve years but past fourteen! They desired,
naturally, to keep me with them in the juvenile department. Thus am
I loved wherever I go! Dost thou not burn to fold me to thy breast?"

What I burned to do at that instant was to turn the _Pearl of Peru_
about and send her speeding swiftly back across the foam.

"So, now I am more than fourteen years and a half, large of my age,
beautiful as all may see, of a wisdom to astonish you. In one year
more, thou shalt find me a husband. Many _novios_ have I had
already! Four serenades were made to me the night before I left
Guadalajara, and on the boat--" She turned to the elderly gentleman
with a complacent and pitying smile. "But"--she took account for the
first time of Michael Daragh--"_quien es el hombron?_" (Who is the
big man?) "_Tu novio?_"

I admitted that he was my betrothed.

"_No es tu esposo?_" she quivered with tentative rage.

I assured her that he was not yet my husband.

"Very well, then," she said in English, "we shall see. Only, I warn
thee, if when thy children come, thou lovest them more than me, I
will burn out their eyes with red-hot curling irons!" (Her English is
heavily accented but perfectly--horribly--understandable.)

A merciful Providence let down the gangplank and she flung herself,
her shrieking, cursing parrot, her shivering dog, into my arms. Santa
Catalina's seed and water cups were empt