Miss Dysart followed him with composure, and gave her gloved hand cordially to Francisca.
"I have heard so much of your paradise," she said, "but I did not know it could be so true."
A bewildered expression crossed Francisca's face as the two advanced, but it passed, and her manner was as perfect as Miss Dysart's own. So was Francisco's, who placed a chair, and drew a rose-branch to shield the visitor's eyes from the sun—his own reflecting the blankness of Francisca's. Francisca had to call him twice to pass the wine she poured in the quaint old glasses, and which they could never conceivably be too poor to offer a guest.
As Miss Dysart sat sipping her wine politely—she was not fond of wine—she felt, as she looked, like one in a foreign land. The Professor, seated discreetly behind, noted this with a smile. But Francisco and Francisca were as much a part of the landscape as any rose in it.
The conversation turned, as conversations infallibly will, to the transcontinental journey, with the "You remember this—you saw that" of travellers.
Francisco and Francisca listened silently, only when Miss Dysart turned to the latter, she said with a kind of proud humility: "Ah! I know nothing of these things. I only know—this," with a gesture about her.
Miss Dysart and the Professor looked at her, and the value of "these things" was differently visible in their eyes.
"How beautiful she is!" thought the Boston girl.
"How much she knows and has seen!" thought Francisca.
The Professor's thoughts are not recorded. What he said was playful, but with an undertone which was not lost on one of his hearers. "'These things' are not worth your rose-garden, Miss Francisca—saying nothing of the rest of the rancho."