A pretty story, indeed." "O 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 that imposes upon Don Juan's simplicity and love for them." "How looks he, this Americano who seeks thee ?" asked Francisco.
"What care I how he looks," said Juanita, "or what he is?
He may have the four S's, for all I care.

Yet," she added with a slight touch of coquetry, "he is not bad to look upon, now I recall him." "Had he a long mustache and a sad, sweet smile, and a voice so gentle and yet so strong that you felt he ordered you to do things without saying it?
And did his eye read your thoughts ?--that very thought that you must obey him ?" "Saints preserve thee, Pancho! Of whom dost thou speak ?" "Listen, Juanita.

It was a year ago, the eve of Natividad; he was in the church when I sang.