"
"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.
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