—­“And that pretty girl is Juanita; she sold pine-apples and grapes in the Almendral, and every night she would go with her guitar—­it was a very nice one, but did not cost near so much money as Dolores’s—­and sing to the American gentlemen in the Star Hotel.  My mother said she was a naughty person, and that she did not dare tell where she got her gold cross and those jet ear-rings.  But I liked her very much, for all that; and I’m sure she would not steal, for she used to give me a fresh pine-apple every morning; and whenever her brother Jose came down from Casa Blanca with the mules and the pisco, she sent me a large melon and some lovely roses.”

—­“That is the house we lived in at Baltimore.  It was painted white, and there was a paling in front, and a dooryard with grass.  We had some honeysuckles on the porch;—­there they are, and there’s the grape-vine.  I had a dog-house, too, made to look like a church, and my father promised to buy me a Newfoundland dog,—­one of those great hairy fellows, with brass collars, you know, that you can ride on,—­when he had sold a great many pictures, and made his fortune.  But we did not make our fortune in Baltimore, and I never got my dog; so we came here to Tom Tiddler’s ground, to pick up gold and silver.  When we are fixed, and get a new tent, my father is going to give me a little spade and a cradle, to dig gold enough to buy a Newfoundland dog with, and then I shall borrow a saw and make a dog-house, like the one I had in Baltimore, out of that green chest.  Charley Saunders lived in that next house in the picture, and he had a martin-box, with a steeple to it; but his father gave fencing-lessons, and was very rich.”

As the intelligent little fellow ran on with his pretty prattle, I was diligently pursuing the lady and child of the specimens through the sketches.  On every leaf I encountered them, ever changing, yet always the same.  Here was the child by my side,—­unquestionably the same; though now I looked in vain for the anxious mouth and the foreboding eyes in his face of careless, hopeful urchinhood.  But who was the other?—­his mother, no doubt; and yet no trace of resemblance.

“And tell me, who is this beautiful lady, my lad,—­here, and here, and here, and here again?  You see I recognize her always,—­so lovely, and so gentle-looking.  Your mother?”

“Oh, no, Sir!” and he laughed,—­“my mother is very different from that.  That is nobody,—­only a fancy sketch.”

“Only a fancy sketch!” So, then, I thought, my pretty entertainer, confiding and communicative as you are, it is plain there are some things you do not know, or will not tell.