“I know him, I know him,” she cried excitedly, “he and his mother, and his two sisters—Nicolacoa and Maria. Oh, how I should love to see them again! I remember going to San Anlaccio with my father and an elder sister, and staying there for two or three months. My father was buying cattle for tasajo, and we lived with the Otano family. They were very kind to as, and we three little girls used to ride together on the water buffaloes, and one day their brother José, who I remember was a sailor, had to come and search for us, for we were lost in a great swamp between Punta de los Amantes and the stone cross of Padre Sanvitores.”
“Those are the people,” I said, feeling pleasurably excited myself that we should have mutual friends. “I have often heard him speak of his mother and two sisters. And often, very often he has urged me to pay him a visit, and settle down with him. He says that I should not want to leave the Marianas once I could see what a beautiful country it is.”
“No, indeed! Ah, Mr. Sherry, 'tis indeed a beautiful country. I wonder if I shall ever see it again! My father, two brothers, and three of my sisters died of fever just before I married Krause, and there are but two of us left now—myself and another sister who is married to the Spanish doctor at San Ignacio de Agana. Oh, shall I ever see her face again?”
Her eyes sparkled, and her pale face flushed as she bent towards me with clasped hands: “Oh, the mere thought of it makes me feel a young girl again.”
“Why should you not?” I began, then I ceased speaking, and walked up and down the room thinking, and I felt my cheeks flush as a project, daring enough, came to my mind.
“Have you a big sheet chart of the Pacific—the large blue-backed one?” I asked.
“Yes, there it is in the corner beside you, with some others. But it is old.”
“It will do.”
I spread it out on the table, and weighted down each of the four ends by means of books, so as to get a good view.