as Mrs. Brimmer, Miss Chubb, the poor Captain, and all the men
whom they have packed off to San Antonio."

"Impossible!" said Miss Keene, yet with an uneasy feeling that it not
only was possible, but that she herself had contributed something to the
delusion. "But how do they account for my friendship with YOU--you, who
are supposed to be a correspondent--an accomplice of Perkins?"

"No, no," returned Mrs. Markham, with a half serious smile, "I am not
allowed that honor. I am presumed to be only the disconsolate Dulcinea
of Perkins, abandoned by HIM, pitied by you, and converted to the true
faith--at least, that is what I make out from the broken English of that
little secretary of the Commander."

Miss Keene winced.

"That's all my fault, dear," she said, suddenly entwining her arms round
Mrs. Markham, and hiding her half embarrassed smile on the shoulder of
her strong-minded friend; "they suggested it to me, and I half assented,
to save you. Please forgive me."

"Don't think I am blaming you, my dear Eleanor," said Mrs. Markham. "For
Heaven's sake assent to the wildest and most extravagant hypothesis they
can offer, if it will leave us free to arrange our own plans for getting
away. I begin to think we were not a very harmonious party on the
Excelsior, and most of our troubles here are owing to that. We forget
we have fallen among a lot of original saints, as guileless and as
unsophisticated as our first parents, who know nothing of our customs
and antecedents. They have accepted us on what they believe to be our
own showing. From first to last we've underrated them, forgetting they
are in the majority. We can't expect to correct the ignorance of fifty
years in twenty-four hours, and I, for one, sha'n't attempt it. I'd much
rather trust to the character those people would conceive of me from
their own consciousness than to one Mrs. Brimmer or Mr. Winslow would
give of me. From this moment I've taken a firm resolve to leave my
reputation and the reputation of my friends entirely in their hands.
If you are wise you will do the same. They are inclined to worship
you--don't hinder them. My belief is, if we only take things quietly,
we might find worse places to be stranded on than Todos Santos. If Mrs.
Brimmer and those men of ours, who, I dare say, have acted as silly as
the Mexicans themselves, will only be quiet, we can have our own way
here yet."

"And poor Captain Bunker?" said Miss Keene.

"It seems hard to