“Why not?” she demanded. “I am very fond of you, and you are really the handsomest man I ever saw—and the very nicest.”
He did not smile at her innocence.
“For two reasons,” he said; “first, because I am old enough to be your real father; and secondly, because I should wish my ward to marry some one better than a professional gambler.”
“If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me,” she said. “And I shall never love any one half as well as I love you.”
She took off his hat, and put her flower-bedecked one in its place; and, strange to say, Varley’s remarkable good looks came through even this severe test triumphantly.
She put her arms round his neck and kissed him, the sweet, unconscious kiss of perfect innocence. Varley did not return the caress, and, making a proper exchange of hats, put her on the pony, and walked home beside her.
Although she had taken his admonition so easily, it produced a marked change in her. From that day The Penman had no cause for complaint. She learned with patience now, sitting for hours over her books, her ink-stained fingers thrust in her hair, her mobile lips repeating long rules of grammar and intricate passages of English and other history. But no one knew what she suffered!
One day—she was a little over seventeen—she was riding through the wood that rose from the edge of the stream half-way up the hill, her hat tilted over her eyes, her soft, full voice singing melodiously, when her horse, a beautiful young chestnut, purchased by the camp for her special use, started and shied, and then neighed.
An answering neigh came from behind the trees in front of her, and another horse trotted toward them. It was saddled, but riderless, and Esmeralda pulled up, and looked for the owner.
He was nowhere to be seen. She thought for a moment; then she got down and examined the ground, for, among other accomplishments, she had acquired the art of tracking, and very few of the men possessed keener eyes or sharper ears than hers.