"And now they say it is discovered who are my parents."

"And they live?"

"Mother of God! no," said the girl, with scarcely filial piety. "There
is some one, a thing, a mere Don Fulano, who knows it all, it seems, who
is to be my guardian."

"But how? tell me all, dear Juanita," said the boy with a feverish
interest, that contrasted so strongly with his previous abstraction that
Juanita bit her lips with vexation.

"Ah! How? Santa Barbara! an extravaganza for children. A necklace of
lies. I am lost from a ship of which my father--Heaven rest him--is
General, and I am picked up among the weeds on the sea-shore, like Moses
in the bulrushes. A pretty story, indeed."

"Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed Francisco, enthusiastically. "Ah,
Juanita, would it had been me."

"THEE!" said the girl bitterly,--"thee! No!--it was a girl wanted.
Enough, it was me."

"And when does the guardian come?" persisted the boy, with sparkling
eyes.

"He is here even now, with that pompous fool the American alcalde from
Monterey, a wretch who knows nothing of the country or the people, but
who helped the other American to claim me. I tell thee, Francisco, like
as not it is all a folly, some senseless blunder of those Americanos