nel petticoats,
some old novels and books of poetry--of which the Padre makes an
auto-da-fe--and their own patronizing presence on fete days. Providence
has given them the vague impression that leprosy and contagious
skin-disease are a peculiarity of the southern aborigine, and they have
left me severely alone."

"I wish you would prevail upon the Padre to let ME help you," said Miss
Keene, looking down.

"But you already have the Commander's chickens--which you are bringing
up as swans, by the way," said Hurlstone mischievously. "You wouldn't
surely abandon the nest again?"

"You are laughing at me," said Miss Keene, putting on a slight pout to
hide the vague pleasure that Hurlstone's gayer manner was giving
her. "But, really, I've been thinking that the Presidio children are
altogether too pretty and picturesque for me, and that I enjoy them too
much to do them any good. It's like playing with them, you know!"

Hurlstone laughed, but suddenly looking down upon her face he was struck
with its youthfulness. She had always impressed him before--through her
reserve and independence--as older, and more matured in character. He
did not know how lately she was finding her lost youth as he asked her,
quite abruptly, if she ever had any little brothers and sisters.

The answer to this question involved the simple story of Miss Keene's
life, which she gave with naive detail. She told him of her early
childhood, and the brother who was only an indistinct memory; of her
school days, and her friendships up to the moment of her first step into
the great world that was so strangely arrested at Todos Santos. He
was touched with the almost pathetic blankness of this virgin page.
Encouraged by his attention, and perhaps feeling a sympathy she had
lately been longing for, she confessed to him the thousand little things
which she had reserved from even Mrs. Markham during her first apathetic
weeks at Todos Santos.

"I'm sure I should have been much happier if I had had any one to
talk to," she added, looking up into his face with a naivete of faint
reproach; "it's very different for men, you know. They can always
distract themselves with something. Although," she continued
hesitatingly, "I've sometimes thought YOU would have been happier if you
had had somebody to tell your troubles to--I don't mean the Padre;
for, good as he is, he is a foreigner, you know, and wouldn't look upon
things as WE do--but some one in sympathy with you