"Bah!" the captain interrupted, "we are as yet only on the frontiers of the prairies. You will find, when we have penetrated further into the interior, that you will not be able to gather the riches which will spring from under your feet."
"God grant it may be so, captain;" said the doctor, with a sigh; "provided I find the plant I seek I shall be satisfied."
"Is it then such a very valuable plant?" asked Doña Luz.
"What, señorita!" cried the doctor, warming with the question. "A plant which Linnaeus has described and classified, and which no one has since found! a plant that would make my reputation! And you ask me if it is valuable?"
"Of what use is it, then?" the young lady asked, in a tone of curiosity.
"Of what use is it?"
"Yes."
"None at all, that I am aware of," the doctor replied, ingeniously.
Doña Luz broke into a silvery laugh, whose pearly notes might have made a nightingale jealous.
"And you call it a valuable plant?"