"Yes, twice; and when I kissed her she said, 'Kiss Sarella for me.' Also she sent you a letter."
Sarella received very few letters and liked getting them. She was rather curious to see what sort of letter Mariquita would write, and made up her mind it would be "nunnish and poky."
Whether "nunnish" or no, it was not "poky," but pleasant, very cheerful and bright, and very affectionate. It contained little jokish allusions to home matters, and former confidential talks, and one passage (much valued by Sarella) concerning a gown, retracting a former opinion and substituting another backed by most valid reasons. "If those speckled hens go on eating each other's feathers," said the letter, "you'll have to kill them and eat them. Once they start they never give it up, and it puts the idea in the others' heads. Feathers don't suit everybody, but fowls look wicked without them. I hope poor old Jack doesn't miss me; give him and Ginger my love, and ask him to forgive me for not marrying Mr. Gore—he gave me a terrible lecture about it, and Ginger said, 'Quit it, Dad! I knew she wouldn't. I know sweethearts when I see them—though I never did see one—not of my own.' I expect Larry Burke will show her one soon, don't you, Sarella? It will do very well; Larry will have the looks and Ginger will have the sense, and teach him all he needs. He has such a good heart he can get on without too much sense...."
Sarella liked her letter, and decided that Mariquita was not lost, though removed.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"I suppose," Don Joaquin remarked in a disengaged manner, "that, after all your preparations, we can fix the day for our wedding any time now."
Sarella was not in the least taken in by his elaborate air of having been able, for his part, to have fixed a day long ago.
It was, however, part of her system to fall in with people's whimsies when nothing was to be gained by opposing or exposing them.
"Oh, yes," she agreed, most amiably. "It will take three Sundays to publish the banns—any day after that. Meanwhile I should be received. Sister Aquinas says I am ready. As soon as we have settled the exact time, we must let Mariquita know, and you can, when the time comes, go over and fetch her home."