"'This, Pedro,' said Clara, looking at the toe of her slipper, which was drawing figures in the gravel-walk. 'You must know that I did it to punish him for making love so awkwardly. Now, instead of going down on his knees, as the saints know I could have done to him, the cold-blooded fellow went on as frigidly as if he had been buying a negro, and that too with a moon shining over him which should have crazed him, and talking to a girl whose heart was full of fiery love for him. Pedro, my heart was chilled, and so, to punish him, I—'
"'Diablo!' swore Pedro, dropping his sister's arm, and striding off in a great rage.
"'Oh! stay, brother!' sobbed poor Clara; 'indeed, I could not help it. Oh, dear!' she continued, as Pedro vanished from her sight, 'now he's angry. What have I done?' She buried her face in her hands, entered the arbor, threw herself on the settee, and began sobbing with convulsive grief. Here was a situation for an unsophisticated youth like myself. Egad! my heart bounced about in my breast like a shot adrift in the cook's biggest copper. I approached the lady softly, and, grown wiser by experience, knelt before I took her hand. She started, screamed faintly, and endeavored to escape.
"'Stay, stay, dearest Clara!' cried I, detaining her, 'I should not dare to again address you after the repulse of last night, had I not just now been an inadvertent, but delighted listener to your own sweet confession that you loved me. Let me say in return that I love you as wildly, tenderly, passionately, as if I, like you, had been born under a southern sun; that I cannot be happy without you. Forgive me for last night. It was not that my heart was cold, but I was fearful that unless I constrained myself I should be wild and extravagant. Dearest Clara, will you say to me that which you just now told Pedro?'
"Her head sunk upon my shoulder. 'Señor,' she murmured, 'I do love you, and with my whole heart.'
"'And will be my wife?' I asked.
"'Whenever you please.'"
Here the mate paused, and gave several very energetic puffs, and lighted a new cigar.
"I clasped the dear girl to my heart," he resumed, "and kissed her cheeks, her lips and eyes, a thousand times, and was just beginning on the eleventh hundred, when, lo, there stood mine host in the doorway, evidently very much amused, and, considering that it was his sister with whom these liberties had been taken, extremely satisfied.
"I came immediately to the conclusion, in my own mind, to defer any farther labial demonstrations, and felt rather foolish; but Clara arranged her dress and looked defiance.