“No, dear,” says Moll, “’tis of no use to think of that I couldn’t play now.”

After this we sat silent awhile, looking into the embers; then Jack, first to give expression to his thoughts, says: 

“I think you were never so happy in your life, Moll, as that time we were in Spain, nor can I recollect ever feeling so free from care myself,—­after we got out of the hands of that gentleman robber.  There’s a sort of infectious brightness in the sun, and the winds, blow which way they may, do chase away dull thoughts and dispose one to jollity; eh, sweetheart?  Why, we met never a tattered vagabond on the road but he was halloing of ditties, and a kinder, more hospitable set of people never lived.  With a couple of rials in your pocket, you feel as rich and independent as with an hundred pounds in your hand elsewhere.”

At this point Moll, who had hitherto listened in apathy to these eulogies, suddenly pushing back her chair, looks at us with a strange look in her eyes, and says under her breath, “Elche!”

“Barcelony for my money,” responds Dawson, whose memories of Elche were not so cheerful as of those parts where we had led a more vagabond life.

“Elche!” repeats Moll, twining her fingers, and with a smile gleaming in her eyes.

“Does it please you, chuck, to talk of these matters?”

“Yes, yes!” returns she, eagerly.  “You know not the joy it gives me” (clapping her hand on her heart).  “Talk on.”

Mightily pleased with himself, her father goes over our past adventures,—­the tricks Moll played us, as buying of her petticoat while we were hunting for her, our excellent entertainment in the mountain villages, our lying abed all one day, and waking at sundown to think it was daybreak, our lazy days and jovial nights, etc., at great length; and when his memory began to give out, giving me a kick of the shin, he says: 

“Han’t you got anything to say?  For a dull companion there’s nothing in the world to equal your man of wit and understanding”; which, as far as my observation goes, was a very true estimation on his part.

But, indeed (since I pretend to no great degree of wit or understanding), I must say, as an excuse for my silence, that during his discourse I had been greatly occupied in observing Moll, and trying to discover what was passing in her mind.  ’Twas clear this talk of Spain animated her spirit beyond ordinary measure, so that at one moment I conceived she did share her father’s fond fancy that our lost happiness might be regained by mere change of scene, and I confess I was persuaded somewhat to this opinion by reflecting how much we owe to circumstances for our varying moods, how dull, sunless days will cast a gloom upon our spirits, and how a bright, breezy day will lift them up, etc.  But I presently perceived that the stream of her thoughts was divided; for though she nodded or shook her head, as occasion required, the strained, earnest expression in her tightened lips and knitted brows showed that the stronger current of her ideas flowed in another and deeper channel.  Maybe she only desired her father to talk that she might be left the freer to think.