“I thought it was but yesterday that you said nothing could induce you to leave Madeira.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, “but—”
“But you didn’t know then that Gabriel was going away,” her father supplied. “Well, I have almost decided to go myself, but not to work on an old plantation, mind you. I am a carpenter, and none of your dirty work on a field for me.”
While they talked, Gabriel appeared in the doorway.
“I came back to tell you,” he said, after he had greeted Maria, “that if you decide to go, you must send in your names tomorrow. The man has been here for some time but in this out of the way place, news travels slowly, so that I but heard it yesterday when I went to Senhor Marques’ house to repair his wall, which fell in the last wind storm.”
“Yes, I believe I shall send in my name tomorrow,” said Manuel slowly, rising from his comfortable position on the floor and going out to the kitchen where his wife was preparing the dinner for her hungry family, leaving Gabriel and Maria da Cruzs together.
“Ah, Maria,” he said, “to think that we shall soon be able to get married. In that blessed paradise, I can surely make enough money to support both of us. Then, too, our house will be free of rent; and that is quite a saving.”
Maria was silent, but Gabriel could read in her silence that she, too, was pleased with the prospect which he was painting.
“Had we better get married before the boat sails, or shall we wait until we get to Honolulu?” he asked.
“Oh, let us wait until we get to the Islands, and then we can tell better what lies before us.”