then offered us to smoke some cigarros, but we, not understanding them,
took instead our homely pipes, and each with a beaker of hot wine to his
hand sat roasting before the fire, scarce saying a word, the Don being
silent because his humour was of the reflective grave kind (with all his
courtesies he never smiled, as if such demonstrations were unbecoming to
his dignity), and we from repletion and a feeling of wondrous
contentment and repose. And another thing served to keep us still, which
was that our Moll, sitting beside her father, almost at once fell
asleep, her head lying against his shoulder as he sat with his arm about
her waist. As at the table, Don Sanchez had seated himself where he
could best observe her, and now he scarcely once took his eyes off her,
which were half closed as if in speculation. At length, taking the
cigarro from his lips, he says softly to Jack Dawson, so as not to
arouse Moll:

"Your daughter."

Jack nods for an answer, and looking down on her face with pride and
tenderness, he put back with the stem of his pipe a little curl that had
strayed over her eyes. She was not amiss for looks thus, with her long
eyelashes lying like a fringe upon her cheeks, her lips open, showing
her good white teeth, and the glow of the firelight upon her face; but
her attitude and the innocent, happy expression of her features made up
a picture which seemed to me mighty pretty.

"Where is her mother?" asks Don Sanchez, presently; and Dawson, without
taking his eyes from Moll's face, lifts his pipe upwards, while his big
thick lips fell a-trembling. Maybe, he was thinking of his poor Betty as
he looked at the child's face.