"My father only married once," said Mariquita; "he is a widower."
"Oh, quite so! I wish mine had remained so. My stepmother—but we all have our faults, no doubt. We did not live agreeably after her third marriage—" (Mariquita was getting giddy, and so, perhaps, was Miss Jackson's fellow-traveller.)
"I could not, in fact, live," that lady serenely continued, with a smile of lingering sweetness, "and finally we differed completely. (Not noisily, on my part, nor roughly but irrevocably.) Hence my resolve to turn to Aunt Margaret, and my presence here—blood is thicker than water, when you come to think of it."
"I met Miss Jackson at ——," her fellow-traveller explained, "and we made acquaintance—"
"Introduced by Mrs. Plosher," Miss Jackson put in again with singular sweetness. "Mrs. Plosher's boarding-house was recommended to me by two ministers. Mr. Gore was likewise her guest, and coming, as she was aware, to your father's."
Don Joaquin, besides the regular cowboys, had from time to time taken a sort of pupil or apprentice, who paid instead of being paid. Mariquita had not been informed that this Mr. Gore was expected.
"So," Mr. Gore added, "I begged Miss Jackson to use one of my horses, and I have been her escort."
"So coincidental!" observed that lady, shaking her head slightly. "Though really—now I find my aunt no longer presiding here—I really——"