The servants received her with their usual
respectful manner and wondering looks; but when she turned back to
ask some question, she saw them whispering together with an unusual
appearance of excitement. Her cheeks glowed with a consciousness that
her anomalous position was well calculated to excite their curiosity;
and she turned away, thinking how different it had been with her
mother,--how sheltered and protected she had always been. She
remembered how very rarely her father left home, and how he always
hastened to return. She stood awhile on the veranda, thinking sadly,
"If Gerald loves me as Papasito loved Mamita, how can he be contented
to leave me so much?" With a deep sigh she turned and entered the
house through an open window. The sigh changed at once to a bright
smile. The parlor had undergone a wondrous transformation since she
last saw it. The woodwork had been freshly painted, and the walls were
covered with silvery-flowered paper. Over curtains of embroidered lace
hung a drapery of apple-green damask, ornamented with deep white-silk
fringe and heavy tassels. "How kind of Gerald!" murmured she.
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