A tramp, if he could sing, would be a troubadour; if he could pray,
would be a pilgrim friar--in either case a natural object of
womanly solicitude. But as he could do neither, he was simply a
curse.

"And you think that is not an object of womanly solicitude? But
that does not tell me WHAT he is."

A dozen gentlemen, swept in the radius of those softly-inquiring
eyes, here started to explain. From them it appeared that there
was no such thing in California as a tramp, and there were also a
dozen varieties of tramp in California.

"But is he always very uncivil?" asked Maruja.

Again there were conflicting opinions. You might have to shoot him
on sight, and you might have him invariably run from you. When the
question was finally settled, Maruja was found to have become
absorbed in conversation with some one else.

Amita, a taller copy of Maruja, and more regularly beautiful, had
built up a little pile of bread crumbs between herself and Raymond,
and was listening to him with a certain shy, girlish interest that
was as inconsistent with the serene regularity of her face as
Maruja's self-possessed, subtle intelligence was incongruous to her
youthful figure. Raymond's voice, when he addressed Amita, was low
and earnest; not from any significance of matter, but from its
frank confidential quality.

"They are discussing the new railroad project, and your relations