At this point the Indian girl’s tendency to laugh increased, but whether because of fresh views of the absurdity of what had passed, or because of some faint perception of the negro’s meaning, Lawrence had no power to decide.
“I should have thought, Quashy,” he said, with a return of his wonted gravity, “that a man of a thoughtful and contemplative turn of mind like you would have acquired the power of expressing almost any idea in Spanish by this time.”
“T’ank you for de compl’ment, massa,” replied Quashy, “but I not so clebber as you t’ink. Der am some tings in flosuffy dat beats me. When I tries to putt ’em afore oder peepil in Spinich, I somehow gits de brain-pan into sitch a conglomeration ob fumbustication dat I not able to see quite clar what I mean myself—dough, ob course, I knows dat I’m right.”
“Indeed!”
“Yis; but de great consolation I has is dat de peepil I’m talkin’ to don’t onderstand me a mossel better nor myself; an’, ob course, as noting in de wurl could show dem dey was wrong, it don’t much matter.”
“That is good philosophy, at all events. Isn’t it, Manuela?” asked Lawrence in Spanish.
“Si, senhor,” replied the girl, with sparkling eyes and a dazzling display of little teeth which seemed to indicate that she fully appreciated what was said.
“Strange,” thought Lawrence—“so grave and pensive, yet at times so sprightly; so intelligent, yet, of course, so ignorant; so very brown, and yet so pretty. What a pity she is not white!”
He only said, however, with a sigh, “Is the gale abating, Quashy?”
To which the negro replied, with a responsive sigh, “Yis, massa,—it am.”