your mind again and go back to San Francisco."

He was confused, and reddened again. But he had become accustomed to her
ways; rather, perhaps, he had begun to recognize the quaint justice that
underlaid them, or, possibly, some better self of his own, that had been
buried under bitterness and sloth and struggled into life. "But whatever
he says," he returned eagerly, "cannot alter my feelings to YOU. It can
only alter my position here, and you say you are above being influenced
by that. Tell me, Nelly--dear Nelly! have you nothing to say to me, AS
I AM, or is it only to your father's manager that you would speak?" His
voice had an unmistakable ring of sincerity in it, and even startled
him--half rascal as he was!

The young girl's clear, scrutinizing eyes softened; her red resolute
lips trembled slightly and then parted, the upper one hovering a little
to one side over her white teeth. It was Nelly's own peculiar smile, and
its serious piquancy always thrilled him. But she drew a little farther
back from his brightening eyes, her hands still curled behind her, and
said, with the faintest coquettish toss of her head toward the hill: "If
you want to see father, you'd better hurry up."

With a sudden determination as new to him as it was incomprehensible,
Reddy turned from her and struck forward in the direction of the hill.
He was not quite sure what he was going for. Yet that he, who had only
a moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was now
going to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remaining
did not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement as
it was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, he
should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, turned,
and looked behind him.