s who had abandoned me, happy only in the
love of him who became my adopted father. And now"--She paused.

"And now?" echoed Francisco, eagerly.

"And now they say it is discovered who are my parents."

"And they live?"

"Mother of God! no," said the girl, with scarcely filial piety. "There
is some one, a thing, a mere Don Fulano, who knows it all, it seems,
who is to be my guardian."

"But how? Tell me all, dear Juanita," said the boy with a feverish
interest, that contrasted so strongly with his previous abstraction
that Juanita bit her lips with vexation.

"Ah! How? Santa Barbara! An extravaganza for children. A necklace of
lies. I am lost from a ship of which my father--Heaven rest him!--is
General, and I am picked up among the weeds on the sea-shore, like
Moses in the bulrushes. A pretty story, indeed."

"O how beautiful!" exclaimed Francisco enthusiastically. "Ah, Juanita,
would it had been me!"

"_Thee_!" said the girl bitterly,--"thee! No!--it was a girl wanted.
Enough, it was me."

"And when does the guardian come?" persisted the boy, with sparkling
eyes.

"He is here even now, with that pompous fool the American alcalde from
Monterey, a wretch who knows nothing of the country or the people, but
who helped the other American to claim me. I tell thee, Francisco, like
as not it is all a folly, some senseless blunder of those Americanos
that imposes upon Don Juan's simplicity and love for them."

"How looks he, this Americano who seeks thee?" asked Francisco.

"What care I how he looks," said Juanita, "or what he is? He may have
the four S's, for all I care. Yet," she added with a slight touch of
coquetry, "he is not bad to look upon, now I recall him."

"Had he a long mustache and a sad, sweet smile, and a voice so gentle
and yet so strong that you felt he ordered you to do things without
saying it? And did his eye read your thoughts?--that very thought that
you must obey him?"

"Saints preserve thee, Pancho! Of whom dost thou speak?"

"Listen, Juanita. It was a year ago, the eve of Natividad; he was in
the church when I sang. Look where I would, I always met his eye. When
the canticle was sung and I was slipping into the sacristy, he was
beside me. He spoke kindly, but I understood him not. He put into my
hand gold for an _aguinaldo_. I pretended I understood not that also,
and put it into the box for the poor. He smiled and went away. Often
have I seen him since; and last night, when I left t