plots and plans and intrigues, that, having been the intimate of his house and table, I must perforce aid and abet whatever schemes engrossed him.  Ay, more often than frequently did a dark surmise cross my mind, but I brushed it aside as one does the prompting of evil desires.  I would not believe that a Carillo would plot, conspire, and rise again, after the terrible lesson he had received in 1838.  Alvarado holds California to his heart; Castro, the Mars of the nineteenth century, hovers menacingly on the horizon.  Who, who, in sober reason, would defy that brace of frowning gods?”

His eloquence was cut short by respiratory interference, but he continued to stride from one end of the room to the other, his face flushed with excitement.  Prudencia’s large eyes followed him, admiration paralyzing her tongue.  Dona Trinidad smiled upward with the self-approval of the modest barn-yard lady who has raised a magnificent bantam.  Don Guillermo applauded loudly.  Only Chonita turned away, the truth smiting her for the first time.

“Words! words!” she thought, bitterly. “He would have said all that in two sentences.  Is it true—­ay, triste de mi!—­what he said of my brother?  I hate him, yet his brain has cut mine and wedged there.  My head bows to him, even while all the Iturbi y Moncada in me arises to curse him.  But my brother! my brother! he is so much younger.  And if he had had the same advantages—­those years in Mexico and America and Europe—­would he not know as much as Diego Estenega?  Oh, sure! sure!”

“My son,” Don Guillermo was saying, “God be thanked that thou didst not merit thy imprisonment.  I should have beaten thee with my cane and locked thee in thy room for a month hadst thou disgraced my name.  But, as it happily is, thou must have compensation for unjust treatment.—­Prudencia, give me thy hand.”

The girl rose, trembling and blushing, but crossed the room with stately step and stood beside her uncle.  Don Guillermo took her hand and placed it in Reinaldo’s.  “Thou shalt have her, my son,” he said.  “I have divined thy wishes.”

Reinaldo kissed the small fingers fluttering in his, making a great flourish.  He was quite ready to marry, and his pliant little cousin suited him better than any one he knew.  “Day-star of my eyes!” he exclaimed, “consolation of my soul!  Memories of injustice, discomfort, and sadness fall into the waters of oblivion rolling at thy feet.  I see neither past nor future.  The rose-hued curtain of youth and hope falls behind and before us.”

“Yes, yes,” assented Prudencia, delightedly.  “My Reinaldo! my Reinaldo!”

We congratulated them severally and collectively, and, when the ceremony was over, Reinaldo cried, with even more enthusiasm than he had yet shown, “My mother, for the love of Mary give me something to eat,—­tamales, salad, chicken, dulces.  Don Juan and I are as empty as hides.”

Dona Trinidad smiled with the pride of the Californian housewife.  “It is ready, my son.  Come to the dining-room, no?”