"You will miss Gordon very much."
"Indeed I shall, and so will you; but he says he will come back again, and I think he will."
Magdalen spoke this last sentence in a peculiarly confidential tone, raising her fan as she spoke, and looking over the edge of it at Marcelino, but the glance and the tone were alike thrown away upon that gentleman.
"He promised me long ago," replied he, "that if we have to fight for our freedom he will join us; but now I think we shall win it without fighting, the French are doing that for us. He likes the country so some day we shall have him back again. What will you do without him? You will have no one to read English to you in the porch next summer."
"Poor me! but it was very seldom he did read to me last summer. I think he likes galloping about better than reading. Last summer he was always in a hurry to get away, and his gallops were always in one direction."
"Yes, the traitor! he was always taking me to the Miserere in the afternoons, and then leaving me to find my way back by myself."
"Yet I never saw you angry with him for deserting you."
"The time passed so pleasantly that I never missed him till it was time to go back. You cannot think how I am wishing for the long days to come again."
"Papa likes the winter best."
"Yes, he likes to sit at his fireside while you make tea for him, but we Porteños like the open air better. For me the most pleasant place in any season is where you are."