"'And what do you want me to do, madam?'
"'I want you to be that child's guardian; the honest man through whom she will reach the outside of San Antonio and the world. Who will go between her and me until a happier time.'
"'I am only a rough engineer; the child will be raised to consider herself well off, perhaps rich.'
"'Adopt her. I will stay in the background; make her expenditures and her education what you like. I will trust you.'
"'I can't do that.'
"'You are single; your life is hard; I have money enough for us all. Let us go to the Sandwich islands, anywhere, and commence life anew. The little one will know no other father, and all inquiry will be stopped.'
"'I couldn't think of it, my dear madam; it's too easy; it's like pulling jerkwater passenger—I like through freight.'
"Well, John, to make a long story short, the interview ended about here, and several more got to about the same place. There were a thousand things I could not help but admire in that woman, and I liked her better the more I knew her. But it wan't love; it was a sort of an admiration for her love of the child, and the nerve she displayed in its behalf. But I shrank from becoming her husband or companion, although I think she loved me, in the end, better than she ever did anybody.
"However, I finally agreed to look after the little one, in case anything happened to the mother, and commenced then to send the money for her board and tuition, and the mother dropped out of all connection with the child or those having her in charge.