“And she is perfectly right. I see the mistake now, and I regret it more than words can tell. You knew why I asked Don Mariano not to mention that I had paid him.”
“Yes, Gabriel told me first, and he, too, thinks it is a mistake to let the Alamar ladies have a wrong idea of you. He thinks you do an injustice to yourself. We were talking about it when Don Mariano joined us, and he agreed with Gabriel and said that he would speak to you about it very soon. Doesn't any of your family know about it?”
“Yes, Everett and mother do. She would not have come down if I had not told her I paid for the land. But she and I thought that for the present we had better say nothing about it to father, knowing how sensitive he is about his views of ‘Squatter rights?’ He has had so much trouble about those same rights.”
“I suppose you will have to tell him soon—I mean when the attorney general dismisses the appeal.”
“When will that be, do you think?”
“Just as soon as the Supreme Court is in session. It would have been done last fall had not the solicitor general interfered in the most absurd and arbitrary manner.”
“I heard he had, and I heard the settlers rejoicing about it, but I never knew how it happened—I would like to hear.”
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” said Elvira, coming, “if my eloquence and persuasive powers were not of the unprecedented quality they really are, I would never have been able to persuade the señorita to come. Would you believe it? she was actually in bed for the night.”
“Ah!” Clarence exclaimed, regretfully.
“Yes, I told her that if she didn't come, you would take the champagne to her room, and this so frightened her, that she began to dress herself immediately, but the poor little thing trembles as if she had the ague. I gave her a cashmere wrapper and soft shawl to wrap up and not take cold.”