“Lolita!” called Blythe. She turned with a start, still holding the bough.
Her face broke into a smile as she saw who it was. “Señor!” she exclaimed. Then the bough flew up from her hand and she came forward.
“You look like a magnolia yourself,” said Blythe. “Now I know what it is you have always reminded me of, Lolita; you are like a magnolia.”
The eyes drooped and a smile parted the girl’s lips. “You always say me very pretty thing,” she murmured.
“Sit down here and tell me what you have been doing to-day,” Blythe went on.
The girl hesitated. “You have seen Aleeson?” she asked.
“No, I must have missed them.” He involuntarily used the plural. “They had gone when I reached the house. It is warm; I want my horse to rest a little before I go back. Sit down and tell me what you have been doing. Making tortillas, of course, and what else? Have you read from the book I brought you?”
For answer Lolita seated herself and gravely drew from her dress a small book. “I read a leetle,” she said.
Blythe sat down by her side and the two bent over the book together. The lad had discovered that Lolita was by no means as ignorant as many of her class, that her father had taught her to read her own language very well, and she was desirous of learning to read English. Very haltingly and with much mispronouncing she stumbled over the lines, taking Blythe’s corrections meekly and making patient efforts to improve. “I am wishful to surprise Aleeson,” she told him.
“And you will,” he encouraged her by saying. “You are getting on famously.”