Mariquita awoke early to see Sarella entering her room, and it surprised her, for her cousin was not fond of leaving her bed betimes.
"Oh, I'm going back to bed again," Sarella explained. "We were up to all hours. Of course, your father made a rumpus."
Mariquita heard this with less surprise than concern. It really grieved her to displease him.
"He has very queer old-fashioned notions," Sarella remarked, settling herself comfortably on Mariquita's bed, "and thinks it's his business to arrange all your affairs for you. Besides, you know by this time that any plan he has been hatching he expects to hatch out, and not to help him seems to him most undutiful and shocking."
"But Ican'thelp him in this plan of his," Mariquita pleaded unhappily.
"I suppose not. Well, he flared out, and I was glad you were in bed. Gore behaved very well. It's a thousand pities you can't like him."
"But I do like him. I like him better than any man I ever knew."
"Oh, yes! Better than the cowboys or the old chaplain at Loretto.That'sno good."
All this Sarella intended as medicinal; Mariquita, she thought, ought to havesomeof the chill of the late storm. She was not entitled to immediate and complete relief from suspense. But Sarella was beginning to feel a little chill about the legs herself, and did not care to risk a cold, so she abbreviated her disciplinary remarks a little.
"I'm a good stepmother," she remarked complacently, "not at all like one in a novel. I took your part."
"Did you!" Mariquita cried gratefully; "it was very, very kind of you."
"I don't approve of men having things all their own way—whether fathers or husbands. He has been knocked under to too much. Yes, I took your part, and made him understand that if he kept the row up he'd have three of us against him."
"What did you say?"
"All sorts of things. Never mind. Perhaps Mr. Gore will tell you—only he won't. He said a lot of things too. We made your father think he would be wicked if he went on bullying you."
Of course, Mariquita did not understand how this had been effected.
"He would not do anything wicked," she said; "he is a very good man."
"He'd be a very good mule," Sarella observed coolly, considerably scandalizing Mariquita.
"You'd have found him a pretty unpleasant one, if Gore and I had left you to manage him yourself." Sarella added, entirely unmoved by her cousin's shocked look. "We managed him. He won't beat you now. But you'd better keep out of his way as much as you can for a bit. If I were you, I'd have a bad headache and stop in bed."
"But I haven't a headache. I never do have headaches."
Sarella made a queer face, and sighed, then laughed.
"Anyway, you're not to be made to marry Mr. Gore," she said.
Mariquita looked enormously relieved, and began to express her grateful sense of Sarella's good offices.
"For that matter," Sarella cut in, "neither will Mr. Gore be made to marryyou—so if you change your mind it will be no good. He thinks it would be wicked to marry you."
Mariquita perfectly understood that Sarella was trying to make her sorry, and only gave a cheerful little laugh.
"Then," she said, "I shall certainly not ask him. It would be quite useless to ask him to do anything wicked."
"The fact is," Sarella told her, "that you and he ought to be put in a glass case—two glass cases, you'd both of you be quite shocked at the idea of being inone—and labelled. It's a good thing you're unique. If other lovers were like you two, there'd be no marriages."
She got up, and prepared to return to her own room.
"Hulloa!" she said, "there's the auto. Your father's going off somewhere, and you can get up. Probably he is taking Gore away."
"Is Mr. Gore going away?"
"He'll have to. There's no one here for him to marry except Ginger; but no doubt you want him to become a monk."
"A monk! He hasn't the least idea of such a thing."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Sarella, instantly changing the sigh into a laugh. "How funny you people are who never condescend to see a joke."
"I didn't know," Mariquita confessed meekly, "that you had made one."
Don Joaquin was not yet recovered from his annoyance. As Sarella had perceived, he could not easily condone the defective conduct of those who, owing him obedience, refused to carry out a plan that he had long been meditating. But he had been frightened by the picture she had suggested of Divine judgment, and wondered if the hitches that had occurred in the issue of the dispensation for his marriage had been a hint of them—a threatening of what would happen if he opposed the Heavenly Will concerning his daughter's vocation. It was chiefly because the plan of her marriage had been deliberately adopted by himself, that he was reluctant to abandon it. Her own plan of becoming a nun would, he gradually came to see, suit him quite as well. And presently he became aware that, financially, it would suit him even better. If she "entered Religion," he would have to give her a dowry; but not, he imagined, a large one, five thousand dollars or so, he guessed. Whereas, if she married Gore, he would be expected to give her much more. Besides, her marriage would very likely involve subsequent gifts and expenditure. It would all come out of what he wished to save for the beloved son of whom he was always thinking. As a nun, too, Mariquita would be largely engaged in praying for the soul of her mother, and for his own soul and Sarella's and her brother's.
By the time he and Mariquita met he had grasped all these advantages, and, though aloof and disapproving in his manner, he did not attack her.
As it pleased him to admire in Sarella a delightful shrewdness in affairs, he gave her credit for favoring Mariquita's plan because it would leave more money for her own children. In this he paid her an undeserved compliment, for Sarella did not know in the least that Mariquita would receive less of her father's money if she became a nun than if she married Mr. Gore. She had not thought of it, being much of opinion that Gore would ask for nothing in the way of dowry and that Don Joaquin would give nothing without much asking.
Don Joaquin was considerably taken aback to learn that Mariquita had formed no definite plans yet as to her "entering Religion." He had promptly decided that, of course, she would go back to Loretto as a nun, and he was proportionally surprised to find that she had no such idea. This surprise he expressed, almost in dudgeon, to Sarella. He appeared to consider himself quite ill-used by such vagueness; if young women wanted to be nuns it behooved them to know exactly where they meant to go, and what religious work they felt called to undertake.
"If I were you," Sarella told him, after some hasty consideration, "I would let her go to Loretto—on a visit. You will find she makes up her mind quicker there—with nothing to distract her. Sister Aquinas talks of Retreats—Mariquita could make one."
"Who's to do the work here while she's away?" grumbled Don Joaquin.
"It will have to be done when she's gone for good. We may just as well think it out."
Sarella was quite resolved that she would never be the slave Mariquita had been, and did not mind having the struggle, if there was to be one, now.
"Whether Mariquita married or became a nun," she went on, "she would be gone from here. Her place would have to be supplied—more than supplied, for a young wife like me could not do nearly so much work. I should have things to do an unmarried girl has not, and be unfit for much work. I am sure you understand that. Sister Aquinas knows two sisters, very respectable and trustworthy, steady, and not too young. I meant to speak to you about them. They would suit us as well. They will not separate, and for that matter, we can't do with less than two."
Sarella's great object was to open the matter; she intended to succeed but did not count on instant success, or success without a struggle. Don Joaquin had to be familiarized with a scheme some time before he would adopt it. He rebelled at first and for that rebellion she punished him.
"Mariquita's position was wrong," she told him boldly. "It tended to make her unlike other girls and give her unusual ideas. She was tied by the leg here, by too much work, and her only rest or recreation was solitary thinking. If she had been taken about and met her equals she would have been like other girls, I expect. She was a slave and sought her freedom in the skies."
Don Joaquin enjoyed this philippic very little; perhaps he only partly understood it, but he did understand that Sarella thought Mariquita had been put upon and did not intend being put upon herself. He would have been much less influenced if he had thought of Sarella as specially devoted to his daughter or blindly fond of her, but he had always believed that there was but a cool sympathy between the two girls, and that Sarella would have found fault with Mariquita quite willingly if there had been fault to find.
"You have taken up the cudgels," he said sourly, "very strongly for Mariquita of late."
"As time goes on I naturally feel able to speak more plainly than I could when I first came here. I was only your guest. It is different 'of late.' And I am 'taking up the cudgels' for myself more than for Mariquita."
"Oh, I quite see that," he retorted with a savage grin.
Sarella determined to hit back, and she was by no means restrained by scruples as to "hitting below the belt."
"Fortunately for her," she said, "Mariquita has splendid health, and work did not kill her. She has the strength of a horse. Her mother did not leave it to her. I have always heard in the family that Aunt Margaret was delicate, physically unfit for hard work. Men do not notice those things. She died too young, and might have lived much longer if she had not overtaxed her strength. She ought to have been prevented from doing so much work. You were not too poor to have allowed her plenty of help—and you are much better off now."
Don Joaquin almost jumped with horror; he had really adored his wife, and now he was being flatly and relentlessly accused of having perhaps shortened her life by lack of consideration for her. And was it true? He could not help remembering much to support the accusation. She had been a woman of feeble health and feeble temper; her singular beauty of feature and coloring had been in every eye but Joaquin's own, marred by an expression of discontent and complaining, though she had been too much in awe of her masterful husband to set out her grievances to him; he guessed now that she must have written grumbling letters to her relations far away in the East. The man was no monster of cruelty; he was merely stingy and money-loving, hard-natured, and without imagination. Possessed of iron health himself, he had never conceived that the sort of work his Indian mother had submissively performed could be beyond the strength of his wife. It was true that he was much richer now than he had been when he married, and Sarella had herself accustomed him to the idea of greater expenditure, however dexterously he might have done his best to neutralize those spendings. He was more obstinately set upon marrying her than ever, because he had for a long time now decided upon the marriage; he was nervously afraid of her drawing back if he didn't yield to her wishes, the utterance of which he took to be a sort of ultimatum.
"Are these two women Catholics?" he demanded, feeling sure that Sister Aquinas would only recommend such; "I will not have Protestant servants in the house."
"They are excellent Catholics," Sarella assured him, "educated in the convent."
"Then I will consider the plan. You can ask Sister Aquinas about the conditions—wages, and so forth."
"What a pity," thought Sarella, when the interview had ended, "that Mariquita never knew how to manage him."
There was no pomp of leave-taking about Mariquita's departure for Loretto. She was only going on a visit, and would return.
"Whatever you decide upon," Sarella insisted, "you must come back for your father's wedding."
Mariquita promised, and went away, her father driving her all the way to Loretto in the auto. Her departure did not move him much, though he would have been better pleased, after all, if she were going away to a husband's house. Sarella, watching them disappear in the distance, felt it more than the stoical old half-breed.
"I shall miss her," she said to herself; "I like her better than I thought I should. She's as straight as an arrow, and as true as gold. I suppose this watchisgold; he'd never dare to give merolledgold.... Only nine o'clock. It will be a long day, and I shall miss her all the time. Quiet as she is, it will make a lot of difference. No one has such a nice way of laughing, when she does laugh. I wonder if she guesses how little her father cares?Hewon't miss her much. Some men care never a pin for a woman unless they want to marry her.Hehas no use for the others. I expect it makes them good husbands, though. Poor Mariquita! I think I should have hated him if I had been her. It never occurred to her; at first I thought she must be an A-Number-One hypocrite, she seemed to think him so exactly all that he ought to be to her. Then I thought she must be stupid—I soon saw she was as sincere as a baby. But she's not stupid either. She's just Mariquita; she really does see only the things she ought to see, and it's queer. I never saw anyone else that way. I thought at first shemustbe jealous of me, the old man put her so completely on one side, and made such a lot of me. Any other girl would have been. I soon saw she wasn't; it never entered her head that he might leave me money that ought to be hers—it would have entered mine, I know. But 'she never thought of that,' as she used to say about everything." Oddly enough, it was at this particular recollection that a certain dewy brightness (that became them well) glistened in Sarella's pretty eyes.
"Well," she thought, "I'm glad I can call to mind that I did the best I could for her. It made me feel just sick to think of the old man brow-beating and bullying her. I saw a big hulking fellow beat his little girl once, and I felt just the same, only I coulddonothing then but scream. I was a child myself, and I did scream, and I bit him. I'm glad I did bite him, though I was spanked for it. I suppose I'll have to confess biting him, though I don't call it a sin. What on earth can Mariquita confess? At first her goodness put my back up. But I wish she was back. It never occurs to her that she's good. I soon found that out. And she thinks everyone else as good as gold. She thinks all these cowboys good, and she does almost make them want to be. It was funny that she didn't dislike me. (Ishould have if I'd been in her place.) When she kissed me good-bye and said 'Sarella, we'll never forget each other,' it meant more than pounds of candy-talk from another girl. Forget her! Not I. Will Gore? He will never think any other girl her equal. Mrs. Gore may make up her mind to that. Perhaps he'll marry someone not half so good as himself and rather like it. Pfush! It feels lonesome now. I often used to get into my own room to get out of Mariquita's way, and stretch the legs of my mind over a novel. I wish she was here now...."
And Sarella did not speedily give over missing Mariquita. She was a girl who on principle preferred men's society to that of other women, but in practice had considerable need of female companionship. She liked to make men admire her, but she did not much care to be admired by the cowboys, and took it for granted that they already admired her as much as befitted their inferior position. She had always been too shrewd to try and make other women admire her, but she liked talking to them about clothes, which no man understands; and, though Mariquita had been careless about her own sumptuous affairs, she had been a wonderfully appreciative (or long-suffering) listener when Sarella talked about hers.
"And after all," Sarella confessed, "she had taste. My style would not have suited her. That plain style of her own was best for her."
When Don Joaquin returned from Denver he seemed unlike himself, almost subdued. He had been much impressed by the great convent and its large community; the nuns had made much of him, and of Mariquita. They spoke in a way that at last put it into his head that he had under-valued her; there is nothing for awaking our appreciation of our own near relations like the sudden perception that other people think greatly of them. Gore's respect and admiration for his daughter had not done much, for he had only looked upon it as the blind predilection of a young man in love with a beautiful girl. Several of the nuns, including their Reverend Mother, had spoken to him apart, in Mariquita's absence, not immediately on his and her arrival, but on the evening of the following day; on the morrow he was to depart on his return to the range, and in these conversations the Sisters let him plainly see that they regarded the girl as peculiarly graced by God, and of rarely high and noble character.
He asked the Superior if she thought Mariquita would wish to stay with them and become one of themselves.
"No," was the answer. "She is a born Contemplative. Every nun must be a contemplative in some degree, but I use the word in its common sense. I mean that I believe she will find herself called to an Order of pure Contemplatives. She will make a Retreat here, and very likely will be shown during it what is God's will for her."
It surprised the kind and warm-hearted Religious that he did not inquire whether that life were not very hard. But she took charitable refuge in the supposition that he knew so little about one Order or another as to be free from the dread that his child might have a life of great austerity before her.
"You may be sure," she said, in case later on any such affectionate misgiving should trouble him, "that she will be happy. Unseen by you or us she will do great things for God and His children. You shall share in it by giving her to Him when He calls. She is your only child ("As yet," thought Don Joaquin, even now more concerned for her brother, than for her) and God will reward your generosity. He never lets Himself be outstripped in that. For the gift of Abraham's son He blest his whole race."
Don Joaquin knew very little about Abraham, but he understood that all the Jews since his time had been notably successful in finance.
It did not cause him any particular emotion to leave his daughter. She was being left where she liked to be, and would doubtless be at home among these holy women who seemed to think so much of her, and to be so fond of her. He had forgiven her for wishing to be a nun and thought highly of himself for having given his permission.
The nuns thought he concealed his feelings to spare Mariquita's, and praised God for the unselfishness of parents.
Mariquita had never expected tenderness from him, but she thought him a good man and a good father, and was very grateful for his concession in abandoning his insistence on her marriage, and sanctioning her choice of her own way of life. And he did embrace her on parting, and bade God bless her, reminding her that it would be her duty to pray much for himself and Sarella. At the range he found a letter, which had arrived late on the day on which he had left home with her, and this letter he took as a proof that she had prayed to some purpose. The dispensation was granted and he could now fix his marriage for any date he chose.
"Did she send me her love?" Sarella asked, jealous of being at all forgotten.
"Yes, twice; and when I kissed her she said, 'Kiss Sarella for me.' Also she sent you a letter."
Sarella received very few letters and liked getting them. She was rather curious to see what sort of letter Mariquita would write, and made up her mind it would be "nunnish and poky."
Whether "nunnish" or no, it was not "poky," but pleasant, very cheerful and bright, and very affectionate. It contained little jokish allusions to home matters, and former confidential talks, and one passage (much valued by Sarella) concerning a gown, retracting a former opinion and substituting another backed by most valid reasons. "If those speckled hens go on eating each other's feathers," said the letter, "you'll have to kill them and eat them. Once they start they never give it up, and it puts the idea in the others' heads. Feathers don't suit everybody, but fowls look wicked without them. I hope poor old Jack doesn't miss me; give him and Ginger my love, and ask him to forgive me for not marrying Mr. Gore—he gave me a terrible lecture about it, and Ginger said, 'Quit it, Dad! Iknewshe wouldn't. I know sweethearts when I see them—though I never did see one—not of my own.' I expect Larry Burke will show her one soon, don't you, Sarella? It will do very well; Larry will have the looks and Ginger will have the sense, and teach him all he needs. He has such a good heart he can get on withouttoomuch sense...."
Sarella liked her letter, and decided that Mariquita was not lost, though removed.
"I suppose," Don Joaquin remarked in a disengaged manner, "that, after all your preparations, we can fix the day for our wedding any time now."
Sarella was not in the least taken in by his elaborate air of having been able, forhispart, to have fixed a day long ago.
It was, however, part of her system to fall in with people's whimsies when nothing was to be gained by opposing or exposing them.
"Oh, yes," she agreed, most amiably. "It will take three Sundays to publish the banns—any day after that. Meanwhile I should be received. Sister Aquinas says I am ready. As soon as we have settled the exact time, we must let Mariquita know, and you can, when the time comes, go over and fetch her home."
Don Joaquin consented, and Sarella thought she would go and deliver Mariquita's message to Jack and his daughter. She found them together and began by saying, smilingly:
"I expect you have known for a long while that there was a marriage in the air?"
Old Jack had not learned to like her, and Ginger still disliked her smile.
"I don't believe," she said perversely, for, of course, both she and her father understood perfectly, "that Miss Mariquita is going to be married. She's not that way."
This was a discouraging opening, for it seemed to cast a sort of slur on young women whowerelikely to be married.
"Mr. Gore's never asked again!" cried Jack.
"Dad, don't you be silly," Ginger suggested; "everyone knows Miss Mariquita wants to be a nun."
"Yes," said Sarella with impregnable amiability, "but we can't all be nuns. Miss Mariquita doesn't seem to thinkyoulikely to be one. She sent me back by her father such a nice letter. She sends Jack and you her love, and, though she doesn't send Larry Burke her love, thinking of you evidently makes her think of him."
Ginger visibly relaxed, and her father stared appallingly with his one eye.
"Good Lord!" quoth he in more sincere than flattering astonishment.
"Well, he is good," Ginger observed cooly, "and there's worse folk than Larry Burke, or me either."
"Miss Mariquita thinks it would be such a good thing for him," Sarella reported. "So must any one."
Ginger felt that this, after her unpleasantness to the young lady who brought the message, was handsome.
"He might do better," she declared, "and he might do worse."
"Has hesaidanything?" her father inquired with undisguised incredulity.
"What he's said is nothing," Ginger calmly replied. "It's what I think as matters. He's no Cressote, but he's got a bit—or ought, if he hasn't spent it. I'd keep his money together for him, and he'd soon find it a saving. And I could do with him—for if his head's soft so's his heart. I think, Dad," she concluded, willing "to take it out" of her father for his unflattering incredulity, "you may as well, when Miss Sarella's gone, tell him to step round. I'll soon fix it."
"I couldn't do that," Jack expostulated.
"Why not?" Ginger demanded with fell determination.
"I really don't see why you shouldn't," Sarella protested, much amused though not betraying it. "It's all for his good," she added seriously.
Jack was shaken, but not yet disposed to obedience.
"Larry," Sarella urged, "won't be so much surprised as you think. Miss Mariquita, you see, wants him and Ginger to make a match of it—"
"But doeshe?" Jack pleaded, moved by Mariquita's opinion, but not so sure it would reduce Larry to subjection.
"Tut!" said Ginger impatiently. "What'sheto do with it? If he don't know what's best for him, I do. So does Miss Sarella. So does Miss Mariquita."
"And," Sarella added, "you may be sure Miss Mariquita would never have said a word about it if she hadn't felt pretty sure it was to come off. She's never been one to be planning marriages. Why, Larry must have made it as plain as a pikestaff that he was ready, or she would never have guessed it."
The weight of this argument left Jack defenseless.
"Hadn't you better wait, Ginger," he attempted to argue with shallow subtlety; "he's like enough to step round after supper. Then I'd clear, and you could say when you liked."
"No," Ginger decided, "I'm tired of him stepping round after supper, just to chatter. He'd be prepared if you told him I'd said he was to come. He'd know something was wanted. In fact, you'd better tell him."
"Tell him? Me? Tell him what?"
"Just that I'd made up my mind to say 'yes' if he'd a question to ask me."
"Why," cried Jack, aghast, "he'd get on his horse and scoot."
"Not far," Ginger opined, entirely unmoved. "He'd ride back. He's not pluck enough to be such a coward as to scoot for good. Just you try."
The two women drove the battered old fellow off, Ginger laughed and said:
"Aren't men helpless?"
Sarella was full of admiration of her prowess.
"Well,you'renot," she said.
"Not me. But, Dad won't find Larry as much surprised as he thinks. It's been in the silly chap's head (or where folks keep their ideas that have no head) this three weeks.Isaw, though he never said a lot—"
Overpowered by curiosity, Sarella asked boldly what he did say.
"Oh, just rubbish," Ginger answered laughing; "you're as clean as a tablet of scented soap, anyway," says he, first. Then he said, "Ginger, I've known pretty girls with hair not near so nice as yours—not a quarter so much of it." Another time he asked if I kept a tooth-brush. "I thought so," says he, quite loving; "your teeth's as white as nuts with the brown skin off, and as regular as a row of tombstones in an undertaker's window. I neverdidmind freckles as true as I stand here ..." and stuff like that. But the strongest ever he said was, "Pastry! What's pastry when a woman don't know how to make it. I'd as soon eat second-hand toast. Yours, Ginger, is like what the angels make,Ishould say, at Thanksgiving for the little angels.'"
"Did he, really!" said Sarella, feeling quite sure that Larry would not "scoot."
"I told him," Ginger explained calmly, that if he didn't quit such senseless talkhe'dnever get any more of my pastry. He looked so down that I gave him a slice of pumpkin pie when he was leaving. "The pastry," says I, "will mind you of me, and the pumpkin of yourself." But he got his own back, for he just grinned and said, "Yes, I'll think o' them together, Ginger, for the pie and the pumpkin belongs together, don't they?"
Sarella laughed and expressed her belief that after all Jack's embassy was rather superfluous.
"Maybe so. But I knew he'd hate it, and he deserved it for seeming so unbelieving. If my mother had beenlovelyI'd have been born plain; it's nothimas should think me too ugly for any young fellow to fancy. I daresay I shouldn't have decided to take Larry if Miss Mariquita hadn't sent that message. I was afraid she'd think me a fool. Here's Larry coming round the corner, looking as if he'd been stealing his mother's sugar."
"He's only thinking of your pastry," said Sarella. "I'll slip off. May I be told when it's all settled?"
"Yes, certainly, Miss Sarella, and I'm sure I wish all that's best to the Boss and yourself. It's not everyone could manage him, butyouwill. Poor Miss Mariquita never could. She was too good."
With these mixed compliments Sarella had to content herself.
When she answered Mariquita's letter she was to report not only the judicial end of the plumiverous and specked hens, but the betrothal of Larry Burke and Ginger. "Nothing," she wrote, "but his dread of your displeasure could have overcome his dread of what the other cowboys would say on hearing of his proposing. After all, he has more sense than some sharp fellows who follow at last the advice they know is worth least...."
In her next letter Sarella said:
"I am to be made a Catholic on Monday next; so when you're saying your prayers (and that's all day) you can be thinking of me. Perhaps I gave in to it first to satisfy your father; but even then I thought 'if it makes me a bit more like Mariquita he'll get a better bargain in me.' I shan't ever be at all like you, but I shall be of the same Religion as you, and I know by this time that it will do me good. It's all a bit too big for me to understand, but I like what I do understand, and Sister Aquinas says I shall grow into it. Clothes, she says, fit better when they're worn a bit, and sit easier. She says, 'It has changed you, my dear child, already; you are gentler, and kinder.' She said another thing, 'Your husband has been a Catholic all his life, but you will gradually make him a better one. He is a very sensible man, and he can't see you learning to be a Catholic and not want to learn what it really means himself. He is too honest.' She likes your father a lot, and never bothers him. 'I know,' she said, 'you will not bother him either. Some earnest Catholics do bother their men-folks terribly about religious things—and for all the good they seem to do, might be only half as earnest and have a better effect.' I make my First Communion the day after I'm received. And, Mariquita, my dear, we are to be married that day week. Your father will fetch you home, and mind,mind, you come. I should never forgive you if you didn't. Shall I have Ginger for a bridesmaid? I know some brides do choose ugly ones to make themselves look better. The cowboys (this is a dead secret told me by Ginger) have subscribed to give us a wedding-present. I hope it won't be one of those clocks like black-marble monuments with a round gilt eye in it. I expect the cowboys laugh at both these marriages. But they rather like them. They make a lark, and they never do dislike anything they can laugh at. They certainly all look twice as amiably at me when we meet about the place since theyknewI was going to be married. And Ginger finds them so friendly and pleasant I expect she thinks she might, if she had liked, have married the lot. But that's different. I daresay you notice that I write more cheerfully, now it is settled. Yes, I do. I like him a great deal more than at first. It began when he gave in about what you wanted. I really believe I shall make him happy—and I fancy I think of that more—I mean less of his making me happy. And, Mariquita, itisgood of me to have wanted you to be let alone to be a nun if you thought it right, because, oh dear, how I should like you to be living near or at the next range! Before I got to know you, it was just the opposite. I hoped you'd get a husband of your own andquit; I did. I thought you'd hate your father marrying again, and (if you stayed on here) would be looking disapproval all day long, and perhaps I thought you would not be best pleased at not getting all his money when he died. (I think when people go to Confession they ought to confess things like that. Do they?) Oh, Mariquita, you will be missed. But I'd rather miss you, and know you were being what you felt yourself called away to, than think I had helped to have you interfered with...."
Mariquita, reading Sarella's letter, felt something new in her life, something strangely moving, that filled her eyes and heart with something also new—happy tears. The free gift of tenderness came newly to her; and, it may be, she had least of all looked for it from Sarella.
"'Do people,' she quoted to herself from Sarellaherself, 'confess these things?' I will, anyway."
It hurt her to think that she who so loved justice and charity, must have been both uncharitable and unjust.
But can we agree? Had not Sarella's unforeseen tenderness been her own gift to her? Had Sarella brought tenderness with her from the East?
At the stranger's first coming Mariquita had not judged butfelther, and her feeling (of which she herself knew very little) had been instinctively correct while it lasted.
Of course Mariquita kept her promise of being present at her father's marriage. It had never occurred to her that she could be absent; it was a duty of respect that she owed to him, and a duty of fellow-womanhood that she owed to Sarella.
It amused her a little to hear that a certain Mrs. Kane was to be present, in a sort of maternal quality, and that Mr. Kane was to give the bride away as a sort of official father. Mr. Kane might have seen Sarella a dozen times—in the parlor of the convent, which she was much given to frequent. Mrs. Kane had, so far as Mariquita was aware, never seen her at all—except at Mass.
They were Kentuckians who had moved west some twelve years earlier than Sarella herself, and, though they had not made a fortune, were sufficiently well off to be rather leading members of the congregation. Mrs. Kane's most outstanding characteristic was a genius for organizing bazaars, on a scale of ever-increasing importance; the first had been for the purchase of a harmonium, the last had been to raise funds for a new wing to the Convent; all her friends had prophesied failure for the first; no one had dared predict anything but dazzling success for the last. Mr. Kane was not less remarkable for his phenomenal success in the matter of whist-drives—and raffles. He would raffle the nose off your face if you would let him, and hand over an astonishing sum to the church when he had done it, with the most exquisite satisfaction that the proceeding was not strictly legal.
Both the Kanes were extremely amusing, and no one could decide which was the more good-natured of the two. Of week-day afternoons Mrs. Kane was quite sumptuously attired, Mr. Kane liked to be rather shabby even on Sundays at Mass, which caused him to be generally reported somewhat more affluent than he really was. He had always been supposed to be "about fifty," whereas Mrs. Kane had, ever since her arrival, spoken of herself as "on the sensible side of thirty."
At Sarella's wedding Mrs. Kane's magnificence deeply impressed the cowboys; and Mr. Kane's elaborate paternity towards the bride, whom he only knew by her dress, would have deceived if it had been possible the very elect; they were not precisely that and it did not deceive, though it hugely delighted them.
"I swear he'scrying!" whispered Pete Rugger to Larry Burke. "He cried just like that in the play when Mrs. Hooger ran away with her own husband that represented the hero."
"Well," said Larry, "a man can't help his feelings."
He was secretly wondering if Mr. Kane would give away Ginger—he would do it so much better than Jack.
Mrs. Kane affected no tears. She had the air of serenely parting with a daughter, for her own good, to an excellent, wealthy husband whom she had found for her, and of being ready to do as much for the rest of her many daughters—Mr. and Mrs. Kane were childless.
Perhaps this attitude on her part suited better with her resplendent costume than it would have suited her husband's black attire—which he kept for funerals.
Little was lost on the cowboys, and they did not fail to note that the gray which of recent years had been invading the "Boss's" hair had disappeared.
"In the distance he don't look a lot older than Gore," Pete Rugger declared to his neighbor.
Gore supported Don Joaquin as "best" or groomsman.
It was significant that on Mariquita's appearance no spoken comment was made by any of the cowboys, though to each of them she was the most absorbing figure. Her father had fetched her from Loretto three days before the wedding, and at the Convent had been introduced to a learned-looking but agreeable ecclesiastic who was a rector of a college for lay youths.
Don Joaquin, much interested, had plied the reverend pundit with inquiries concerning this seat of learning, not forgetting particular inquisition as to the terms.
On their conclusion he took notes in writing of all the replies and declared that it sounded exactly what he would choose for his own son.
"I would like," he said, with a simplicity that rather touched the rector, "that my lad should grow up with more education than I ever had."
"Your son," surmised the rector, "would be younger than his sister?"
"He would," Don Joaquin admitted, without condescending upon particulars.
When Gore next saw Mariquita in public she herself was dressed as a bride. It was a little more than a year later. After her return to Loretto she remained there about three weeks, at the end of which she went home to the range for a week. Her parents (as Don Joaquin insisted on describing himself and Sarella) had returned from their wedding trip, and she could see that the marriage was a success. The two new servants were installed, and Ginger was now Mrs. Lawrence Burke and absent onherwedding journey.
Mariquita's father made more of her than of old, and inwardly resolved to make up to "her brother" for any shortcomings there might have been in her case.
Sarella was unfeignedly glad to have her at home, and looked forward sadly to her final departure. Of one thing she was resolved—that Mariquita should be taken all the way to her "Carmel" in California by both "her parents." And, of course, she got her own way.
The extreme beauty of the Convent and its surroundings, the glory of the climate, the brilliance of its light, the splendor of the blue and gold of sky and hills, half blinded Sarella to the rigor of the life Mariquita was entering—till the moment of actual farewell came. Then her tears fell, far more plentifully than Mr. Kane's at her own wedding.
Still she admitted that the nuns were as cheerful as the sky, and wondered if she had ever heard more happy laughter than theirs as they sat on the floor, with Mariquita in their midst, behind the grille in the "speak-room." As a postulant Mariquita did not wear the habit, but only a sort of cloak over her own dress; her glorious hair was not yet cut off.
Don Joaquin did not see the nuns, as did Sarella, with the curtains of the grille drawn back. It seemed to him that the big spikes of the grille were turned the wrong way, for he could not imagine anyone desiring to get forciblyin. He watched everything, fully content to take all for granted as the regulation and proper thing, without particularly understanding any of it. It gave him considerable satisfaction to hear that Saint Theresa was a Spaniard, and he thought it sensible of Mariquita to join a Spanish order. He had no misgivings as to her finding the life hard—he did not know in the least what the life was, and made no inquisition; he had a general idea that women did not feel fastings and so forth. He would have felt it very much himself if he had had to rise with the dawn and go fasting till midday, instead of beginning the day with a huge meal of meat.
The old life at the range, as it had been when Sarella first came, was never resumed. She was determined that its complete isolation should be changed, and she changed it with wonderful rapidity and success. The friendly and kind-hearted Kanes helped her a great deal. They had insisted, at the wedding itself, that the bride and bridegroom should pay them a very early visit, after their return from their wedding-journey. It was paid immediately on their getting back from California, and it lasted several days. During those days their host and hostess took care that they should meet all the leading Catholics of the place, to whom Sarella made herself pleasant, administering to them (in her husband's disconcerted presence) pressing invitations to come out to the range: though they all had autos it was not to be expected that they would come so far for a cup of tea, and they came for a night, and often for two or three nights. Naturally the Kanes came first and they spoke almost with solemnity (as near solemnity as either could attain) of social duty. It was an obligation on all Catholics to hang together, and hanging together obviously implied frequent mutual hospitalities. Don Joaquin had found that the practice of his religion did imply obligations and duties never realized before, and he was a little confused as to their relative strictness. On the whole, he succumbed to what Sarella intended, with a compliance that might have surprised Mariquita had she been there to see. Some of the cowboys were of the opinion that the old man was breaking. He was only being (not immediately) broken in. A man of little over fifty, of iron constitution, does not "break," however old he may appear to five-and-twenty or thirty. The sign that appeared most ominous to these young men was that "the Boss" betrayed symptoms of less rigid stinginess; there was nothing really alarming about the symptoms. Such as they were they were due, not so much to any decay in the patient's constitution, as to a little awakening of conscience referable, such as it was, to the late-begun practices of confession. Old Jack was made foreman, at an increase of pay by no means dazzling, but quite satisfactory to himself, who had not expected any such promotion. Larry and Ginger settled, about two miles from the homestead, in a small house which they were permitted by Don Joaquin to build. Two of the cowboys found themselves wives whom they had first seen in church at Sarella's wedding; these young ladies, it appeared, had severally resolved that under no circumstances would they marry any but Catholics, and their lovers accepted the position, largely on the ground that a religion good enough for Miss Mariquita would be good enough for them.
"Too good," grimly observed one of their comrades who was not then engaged to marry a Catholic.
Don Joaquin allowed the two who were married to have a little place built for themselves on the range. And as the brides were each plentifully provided with sisters it seems likely that soon Don Joaquin will have quite a numerous tenantry. It also appears probable that a priest will presently be resident at the range, for one has already entered into correspondence with Don Joaquin on the subject. Having recently recovered from a "chest trouble," he has been advised that the air of the high prairies holds out the best promise of continued life and avoidance of tuberculosis. There is another scheme afoot of which, perhaps, Don Joaquin as yet knows nothing. It began in the active mind of Sister Aquinas, and its present stage consists of innumerable prayers on her part that she may be able to establish out on the range a little hospital, served by nuns, for the resuscitation of patients threatened with consumption. She sees in the invalid priest a chaplain plainly provided as an answer to prayer; Mr. and Mrs. Kane, her confidants, see in the scheme immense occasion for unbridled bazaars and whist drives. All friends of Mr. Kane meet him on their guard, uncertain which of their possessions he may have it in his eye to raffle. Even as I write, I hear that another answer to the dear nun's prayers looms into sight. A widowed sister of her own, wealthy, childless and of profuse generosity, writes to her, and the burden of her song is that she would not mind (her chest having always been weak) going to the proposed sanatorium herself, at all events for a few years, and bringing with her Doctor Malone: Dr. Malone is of unparalleled genius in his profession, but tuberculous, and it is transparently plain that his kind and affluent friend wishes to finance him and remove him to an "anti-tuberculous air."
It seems to me certain that Sister Aquinas's prayers will very soon be answered, and the sanatorium be a fact. She has, I know, mentally christened it already, "Mariquita" is to be its name.
Mariquita's profession took place fourteen months after her father's second marriage. Her brother was already an accomplished fact; he was, indeed, six weeks old and present (not alone) on the occasion. He was startlingly like his father, a circumstance not adverse to his future comeliness as a man, but which made him a little portentous as a baby. Don Joaquin on the day of his birth wrote to the rector of the college whom he had met at Loretto with many additional inquiries. Mariquita first beheld her brother when, fortunately, his father and her own was not present, for she laughed terribly at the great little black creature with eyes and nose at present much too big. He looked about fifty and had all the solemnity of that distant period of his life.
"Isn'the a thorough Spaniard?" Sarella demanded, pretending to pout discontentedly. But Mariquita saw very clearly that she was as proud of her baby as Don Joaquin himself. Since his birth Sarella's letters had been full of him, and she thought ofhisclothes now. She had persuaded her husband, as a thank-offering for his son, to give a considerable piece of ground, in a beautiful situation, not a mile from the homestead, as the site of the future Church, Convent, and Sanatorium.
The beautiful and bright chapel of the Carmelite convent was free of people; two prie-dieus, side by side, had been placed at the entrance of the church. Towards these Mariquita, dressed as a bride, walked, leaning on her father's arm. She had always possessed the rare natural gift of walking beautifully. No one in the church had ever seen a bride more beautiful, more radiant, or more distinguished by unlearned grace and dignity.
Among the congregation, but nearest to the two prie-dieus, knelt Sarella and Mr. Gore.
Behind their grille the nuns were singing the ancient Latin hymn of invocation to the Holy Ghost.
Presently the Archbishop in noble words set out the Church's doctrine and attitude concerning "Holy Religion," especially in reference to the Orders called Contemplative, for no Catholic Order of religion can be anything but contemplative, in its own degree and fashion. He dwelt upon the thing called Vocation, and the vocation of every human soul to heaven, each by its own road of service, love, and obedience; then upon the more exceptional vocation of some, whereby God calls them to come to Him by roads special and less thronged by travellers to the Golden Gate; pointing out that the Church, unwavering guardian of Christian liberty, in every age insisted on the freedom of such souls to accept that Divine summons as the rest are free to go to Him by the ways of His more ordinary and usual Providence. He spoke of the Church's prudence in this as in all else, and of the courses enjoined by her to enable a sound judgment to be made as to the reality of such exceptional vocation; and so of postulancy, novitiate, and profession.
His words ended, the "bride" and her father rose from their knees and after (on his part the usual genuflection) and on hers a slow and profound reverence, they turned and walked down the church as they had come, she leaning upon his arm. After them the whole congregation moved out of the chapel, and went behind them to the high wooden gates behind which was the large garden of the "enclosure." Grouped before these gates all waited, listening to the nuns slowly advancing towards them from the other side, out of sight, but audible, for they were singing as they came. Slowly the heavy gates opened inwards, and the Carmelites could be seen. In front stood one carrying a great wooden crucifix. The faces of none of them could be seen, for their long black veils hung, before and behind, down to the level of their knees, leaving only a little of the brown habit visible.
Mariquita embraced her father, and Sarella spoke a low word to Gore, who stood on one side of Sarella, went forward with a low reverence towards the Crucifix, kissed its feet, and then turned; with a profound curtesy she greeted those who had gathered to see her entrance into Holy Religion, and took her farewell of "the world," the gates closed slowly, and among her Sisters she went back to the chapel.
The congregation returned thither also. Many were softly weeping; poor Sarella was crying bitterly. Her husband was not unmoved, but his grave dignity was not broken by tears. Gore could not have spoken, but there was no occasion for speech.
Behind the nun's grille in the chapel the little community was gathered, Mariquita among them, no longer in her bride's dress, but in the brown habit without scapular or leathern belt.
The Archbishop advanced close to the grille and put to her many questions. What did she ask? Profession in the order of holy religion of Mount Carmel. Was this of her own free desire? Yes. Had any coerced or urged her to it? No one. Did she believe that God Himself had called her to it? Yes. And many other questions.
Then the Archbishop blessed the scapular, and it was put upon her by her Sisters, as in the case of the belt. So with each article of her nun's dress, sandals and veil.
Thereafter, upon ashes, she lay upon the ground covered by a Pall, and De Profundis was sung.
So the solemn rite proceeded to its end. Afterwards the new Religious sat in the parlor of the grille, or "speak-room," and the witnesses kept it full for a long time, as in succession they went to talk to her where she sat behind the grille.
The last of all was Gore. He only went in as the last of the groups came out.
"I was afraid you might not come," Mariquita told him. "Thank you for coming. If you had not come I should have been afraid that you felt it sad. There is nothing sad about it, is there?"
"Indeed nothing."
There was something in her voice that told him she was gayer than of old, happy she had always been. Though she smiled radiantly she did not laugh as she said:
"I know theceremoniesare rather harrowing to the lookers-on. (I heard someone sob—dear Sarella, I'm afraid.) But not tous. One is not sad because one has been allowed to do the one thing one wanted to do? Is one?"
"Not when it is a great, good thing like this."
"Ah, how kind you are! I always told you you were the kindest person I had ever met. Yes thethingis great and good—only you must help me to do it in God's own way, in the way He wishes it done. You will not get tired of helping, by your prayers for me, will you?"
"Of course I never shall."
Presently she said, not laughing now either, but with a ripple like the laughter of running water in her voice, "You can't think how I like it all, how amusing some of it is! One has to do 'manual labor'—washing pots and pans, and cleaning floors; I believe it is supposed to be a little humiliating, and meant to keep us humble. And you know how used I am to it. I'm afraid of its making me conceited—I do it so much better than the Sisters who never did anything like that at home. Mother Prioress is always afraid, too, that I shan't eat enough, and that I shall say too many prayers. I fell into a pond we have in our garden, and she was terrified, thinking I must be drowned; no one could drown in it without standing on her head. I was trying to get a water-lily, so I fell in and came out frightfully muddy and smelly, too.... You must be kind to Sarella; she is so good, and has been so good to me. I shall never forget what you and she did for me. Write to her if you go away, and tell her all about yourself."
"What there is to tell."
"Oh, there will be lots. You are not such a bad letter-writer as that...."
So they talked, the small, trivial, kindly talk that belongs to friendship, and showed him that Mariquita was more Mariquita than ever, now she was Sister Consuelo. Her father liked the Spanish name, without greatly realizing its reference to Our Lady of Good Counsel.