do to avert
catastrophes of the affections. She now thought to herself, If he cares
for me, how can he keep away from me when he sees Coronado making eyes at
me? She was a little vexed with him for behaving so, and was consequently
all the sweeter to his rival. This when Ralph would have risked his
commission for a smile, and would have died to save her from a sorrow!

Presently this slightly coquettish, yet very good and lovely little
being--this seraph from one of Fra Angelica's pictures, endowed with a
frailty or two of humanity--found herself the heroine of a trying scene.
Coronado hastened it; he judged her ready to fall into his net; he managed
the time and place for the capture. The train had been ascending for some
hours, and had at last reached a broad plateau, a nearly even floor of
sandstone, covered with a carpet of thin earth, the whole noble level bare
to the eye at once, without a tree or a thicket to give it detail. It was
a scene of tranquillity and monotony; no rains ever disturbed or remoulded
the tabulated surface of soil; there, as distinct as if made yesterday,
were the tracks of a train which had passed a year before.

"Shall we take a gallop?" said Coronado. "No danger of ambushes here."

Clara's eyes sparkled with youth's love of excitement, and the two horses
sprang off at speed toward the centre of the plateau. After a glorious
flight of five minutes, enjoyed for the most part in silence, as such
swift delights usually are, they dropped into a walk two miles ahead of
the wagons.

"That was magnificent," Clara of course said, her face flushed with
pleasure and exercise.

"You are wonderfully handsome," observed Coronado, with an air of thinking
aloud, which disguised the coarse directness of the flattery. In fact, he
was so dazzled by her brilliant color, the sunlight in her disordered
curls, and the joyous sparkling of her hazel eyes, that he spoke with an
ingratiating honesty.

Clara, who was in one of her unconscious and innocent moods, simply
replied, "I suppose people are always handsome enough when they are
happy."

"Then I ought to be lovely," said Coronado. "I am happier than I ever was
before."

"Coronado, you look very well," observed Clara, turning her eyes on him
with a grave expression which rather puzzled him. "This out-of-door life
has done you good."

"Then I don't look very well indoors?" he smiled.

"You know what I mean, Coronado. Your health has improved, and you