ould disturb them. They evidently
did not hear his approach, but were talking earnestly. It seemed to
Father Pedro that they had taken each other's hands, and as he looked
Cranch slipped his arm round her waist. With only a blind instinct of
some dreadful sacrilege in this act, Father Pedro would have rushed
forward, when the girl's voice struck his ear. He stopped, breathless.
It was not Francisco, but Juanita, the little _mestiza_.

"But are you sure you are not pretending to love me now, as you
pretended to think I was the _muchacha_ you had run away with and lost?
Are you sure it is not pity for the deceit you practiced upon me--upon
Don Juan--upon poor Father Pedro?"

It seemed as if Cranch had tried to answer with a kiss, for the girl
drew suddenly away from him with a coquettish fling of the black
braids, and whipped her little brown hands behind her.

"Well, look here," said Cranch, with the same easy, good-natured,
practical directness which the priest remembered, and which would have
passed for philosophy in a more thoughtful man, "put it squarely, then.
In the first place, it was Don Juan and the alcalde who first suggested
you might be the child."

"But you have said you knew it was Francisco all the time," interrupted
Juanita.

"I did; but when I found the priest would not assist me at first, and
admit that the acolyte was a girl, I preferred to let him think I was
deceived in giving a fortune to another, and leave it to his own
conscience to permit it or frustrate it. I was right. I reckon it was
pretty hard on the old man, at his time of life, and wrapped up as he
was in the girl; but at the moment he came up to the scratch like a
man."

"And to save him you have deceived me? Thank you, Senor," said the girl
with a mock curtsey.

"I reckon I preferred to have you for a wife than a daughter," said
Cranch, "if that's what you mean. When you know me better, Juanita," he
continued, gravely, "you'll know that I would never have let you
believe I sought in you the one if I had not hoped to find in you the
other."

"_Bueno_! And when did you have that pretty hope?"

"When I first saw you."

"And that was--two weeks ago."

"A year ago, Juanita. When Francisco visited you at the rancho. I
followed and saw you."

Juanita looked at him a moment, and then suddenly darted at him, caught
him by the lapels of his coat and shook him like a terrier.

"Are you sure that you did not love that Francisco? Sp