Nevertheless she walked towards where they were—though her father might possibly have thought her doing so out of place.
CHAPTER III.
Up over the sandy river-bed came the two strangers, and Mariquita stood awaiting them.
The woman might be thirty, and was, she perceived (to whom a saddle was easier than a chair) unused to riding. She was a pretty woman, with a sort of foolish amiability of manner that might mean nothing. The man was younger—perhaps by three years, and rode as if he had always known how to do it, but without being saddle-bred, without living chiefly on horseback.
His companion was much aware of his being handsome, but Mariquita did not think of that. She, however, liked him immediately—much better than she liked the lady. The lady was not, in fact, quite a lady; but the young man was a gentleman; and perhaps Mariquita had never known one.
"Is this," inquired the blonde lady—pointing, though inaccurately, as if to indicate Mariquita's home, "where Mr. Xeres lives, please?"
She pronounced the X like the x's in Artaxerxes.
"Certainly. He is my father."
"Then your mother is my Aunt Margaret," said the lady in the smart clothes that looked so queer on an equestrian.