In a few days after this terrible interview things were going swimmingly well with him.  To keep Clara out of the hands of fortune-hunters, but ostensibly to enable her to pass her first mourning in decent retirement, he had induced her to settle in one of Munoz’s haciendas, a few miles from the city, where he of course had her much to himself.  He was her adviser; he was closeted frequently with the executors; he foresaw the time when he would be the sole manager of the estate; he began to trust that he would some day possess it.  What woman could help leaning upon and confiding in a man who was so useful, so necessary as Coronado, and who had shown such unselfish, such magnanimous sentiments?

Meantime the girl was as admirable in reality as the man was in appearance.  Unexpected inheritance of large wealth is almost sure to alter, at least for a time, and generally for the worse, the manner and morale of a young person, whether male or female.  Conceit or haughtiness or extravagance or greediness, or some other vice, pretty surely enters into either deportment or conduct.  If this girl was changed at all by her great good fortune, she was changed for the better.  She had never been more modest, gentle, affable, and sensible than she was now.  The fact shows a clearness of mind and a nobleness of heart which place her very high among the wise and good.  Such behavior under such circumstances is equal to heroism.  We are conscious that in saying these things of Clara we are drawing largely upon the reader’s faith.  But either her present trial of character was peculiarly fitted to her, or she was one of those select spirits who are purified by temptation.

She remembered Garcia’s claims upon her grandfather, and her own supposed obligations to Coronado.  She informed the executors that she wished to make over half her property to the old man, trusteeing it so that it should descend to his nephew.  Their reply, translated from roundabout and complimentary Spanish into plain English, was this:  “You can’t do it.  The estate is not settled, and will not be for a year.  Moreover, you have no power to part with it until you are of age, which will not be for three years.  Finally, your proposition defies your grandfather’s wishes, and it is altogether too generous.”

Clara’s simple and firm reply was, “Well, I must wait.  But it would seem better if I could do it now.”

There was one reason why Clara should be so calm and unselfish in her elevation; her sorrows served her as ballast.  Why should she let riches turn her head when she found that they could not lighten her heart?  There was a certain night in her past which gold could not illuminate; there had once been a precious life near her, which was gone now beyond the power of ransom.  Thurstane!  How she would have lavished this wealth upon him.  He would have refused it; but she would have prayed and forced him to accept it; she would have been the meeker to him because of it.  How noble he had been! not now to be brought back! gone forever!  And his going had been like the going away of the sun, leaving no beautiful color in all nature, no guiding light for wandering footsteps.  She exaggerated him, as love will exaggerate the lost.