"Sure!" said Doña Trinidad.
"That is love, I suppose," said Chonita, leaning back in her chair and forgetting the poppies. "With her a placid contented hope, with him a calm preference for a malleable woman. If he left her for another she would cry for a week, then serenely marry whom my father bade her, and forget Reinaldo in the donas of the bridegroom. The birds do almost as well."
Don Guillermo smiled indulgently. Prudencia did not know whether to cry or not. Doña Trinidad, who never thought of replying to her daughter, said,—
"Chonita mia, Liseta and Tomaso wish to marry, and thy father will give them the little house by the creek."
"Yes, mamacita?" said Chonita, absently: she felt no interest in the loves of the Indians.
"We have a new Father in the Mission," continued her mother, remembering that she had not acquainted her daughter with all the important events of her absence. "And Don Rafael Guzman's son was drafted. That was a judgment for not marrying when his father bade him. For that I shall be glad to have Reinaldo marry. I would not have him go to the war to be killed."
"No," said Don Guillermo. "He must be a diputado to Mexico. I would not lose my only son in battle. I am ambitious for him; and so art thou, Chonita, for thy brother? Is it not so?"
"Yes. I have it in me to stab the heart of any man who rolls a stone in his way."
"My daughter," said Don Guillermo, with the accent of duty rather than of reproof, "thou must love without vengeance. Sustain thy brother, but harm not his enemy. I would not have thee hate even an Estenega, although I cannot love them myself. But we will not talk of the Estenegas. Dost thou realize that our Reinaldo will be with us this night? We must all go to confession to-morrow,—thy mother and myself, Eustaquia, Reinaldo, Prudencia, and thyself."
Chonita's face became rigid. "I cannot go to confession," she said.
"It may be months before I can: perhaps never."