Sepulvida. It was not of a quality that interruption seriously impaired; Mrs. Sepulvida was a charming but not an intellectual woman, and Mr.

Poinsett took up the lost thread of his discourse quite as readily from her eyes as her tongue.

"To have been consistent, Nature should have left a race of giants here," said Mr. Poinsett, meditatively. "I believe," he added, more pointedly, and in a lower voice, "the late Don Jose was not a large man."

"Whatever he was, he thought a great deal of me!" pouted Mrs. Sepulvida.

Mr. Poinsett was hastening to say that if "taking thought" like that could add a "cubit to one's stature," he himself was in a fair way to become a son of Anak, when he was interrupted by Miss Rosey--

"What's all that about big men? There are none here. They're like the big trees. They don't hang around the coast much! You must go to the mountains for your Goliahs."

Emboldened quite as much by the evident annoyance of her neighbour as the amused look of Arthur Poinsett, she went on--

"I have seen the pre-historic man!--the original athletic sharp! He is seven feet high, is as heavy as a sea-lion, and has shoulders like Tom Hyer. He slings an awful left. He's got blue eyes as tender as a seal's.

He has hair like Samson before that woman went back on him. He's as brave as a lion and as gentle as a lamb. He blushes like a girl, or as girls used to; I wish I could start up such a colour on even double the provocation!"

Of course everybody laughed--it was the usual tribute of Miss Rosey's speech--the gentlemen frankly and fairly, the ladies perhaps a little doubtfully and fearfully. Mrs. Sepulvida, following the amused eyes of Arthur, asked Miss Rosey patronisingly where she had seen her phenomenon.

"Oh, it's no use, my dear, positively--no use. He's married. These phenomena always get married. No, I didn't see him in a circus, Mr.

Dumphy, nor in a menagerie, Mr. Dyce, but in a girl's school!"

Everybody stared; a few laughed as if this were an amusing introduction to some possible joke from Miss Rosey.

"I was visiting an old schoolmate at Madame Eclair's _Pension_ at Sacramento; he was taking his little sister to the same school," she went on, coolly, "so he told me. I love my love with a G, for he is Guileless and Gentle. His name is Gabriel, and he lives in a Gulch."

"Our friend the superintendent--I'm blessed," said Dyce, looking at Dumphy.

"Yes; but not so very guileless," said Pilcher, "eh, Dyce?"

The gentlemen laughed; the ladies looked at each other and then at Miss Ringround. That fearless young woman was equal to the occasion.

"What have you got against my giant? Out with it!"

"Oh, nothing," said Mr. Pilcher; "only your guileless, simple friend has played the sharpest game on record in Montgomery Street."

"Go on!" said Miss Rosey.

"Shall I?" asked Pilcher of Dumphy.

Dumphy laughed his short laugh. "Go on."

Thus supported, Mr. Pilcher a.s.sumed the ease of a graceful _raconteur_.

"Miss Rosey's guileless friend, ladies and gentlemen, is the superintendent and shareholder in a certain valuable silver mine in which Dumphy is largely represented. Being about to leave the country, and anxious to realise on his stock, he contracted for the sale of a hundred shares at $1000 each, with our friend Mr. Dyce, the stocks to be delivered on a certain date--ten days ago. Instead of the stock, that day comes a letter from Conroy--a wonderful piece of art--simple, ill-spelled, and unbusiness-like, saying, that in consequence of recent disappointment in the character and extent of the lead, he shall not hold Dyce to his contract, but will release him. Dyce, who has already sold that identical stock at a pretty profit, rushes off to Dumphy's broker, and finds two hundred shares held at $1200. Dyce smells a large-sized rat, writes that he shall hold Gabriel to the performance of his contract, makes him hand over the stock, delivers it in time, and then loads up again with the broker's 200 at $1200 _for a rise_. That rise don't come--won't come--for that sale was _Gabriel's too_--as Dumphy can tell you. There's guilelessness! There's simplicity! And it cleared a hundred thousand by the operation."

Of the party none laughed more heartily than Arthur Poinsett. Without a.n.a.lysing his feelings he was conscious of being greatly relieved by this positive evidence of Gabriel's shrewdness. And when Mrs. Sepulvida touched his elbow, and asked if this were not the squatter who held the forged grant, Arthur, without being conscious of any special meanness, could not help replying with unnecessary significance that it was.

"I believe the whole dreadful story that Donna Dolores told me," said she, "how he married the woman who personated his sister, and all that--the deceitful wretch."

"I've got that letter here," continued Mr. Pilcher, drawing from his pocket a folded piece of letter paper. "It's a curiosity. If you'd like to see the doc.u.mentary evidence of your friend's guilelessness, here it is," he added, turning to Miss Ringround.

Miss Rosey took the paper defiantly, and unfolded it, as the others gathered round her, Mr. Dumphy availing himself of that opportunity to lean familiarly over the arm of her chair. The letter was written with that timid, uncertain ink, peculiar to the illiterate effort, and suggestive of an occasional sucking of the pen in intervals of abstraction or difficult composition. Saving that characteristic, it is reproduced literally below:--

"1, Hoss Gulch, Argus the 10th.

"DEAR SIR,--On acount of thar heving ben bad Luck in the Leed witch has droped, I rite thes few lins hopping you air Well. I have to say we are disapinted in the Leed, it is not wut we thought it was witch is wy I rite thes few lins. now sir purheps you ixpict me to go on with our contrak, and furniss you with 100 shars at 1 Thousin dolls pur shar. It issint wuth no 1 Thousin dols pur shar, far frummit. No sir, it issint, witch is wy I rite you thes few lins, and it Woddent be Rite nor squar for me to tak it. This is to let you off Mister Dyce, and hopin it ant no trubbil to ye, fur I shuddint sell atal things lookin this bad it not bein rite nor squar, and hevin'

tor up the contrak atween you and me. So no more at pressen from yours respectfuly. G. CONROY.

"P.S.--You might mind my sayin to you about my sister witch is loss sens 1849. If you happind to com acrost any Traks of hers, me bein' away, you can send the sam to me in Care of Wels Farko & Co., New York Citty, witch is a grate favor and will be pade sure. G. C."

"I don't care what you say, that's an honest letter," said Miss Rosey, with a certain decision of character new to the experience of her friends, "as honest and simple as ever was written. You can bet your pile on that."

No one spoke, but the smile of patronising superiority and chivalrous toleration was exchanged by all the gentlemen except Poinsett. Mr.

Dumphy added to his smile his short characteristic bark. At the reference to the writer's sister, Mrs. Sepulvida shrugged her pretty shoulders and looked doubtingly at Poinsett. But to her great astonishment that gentleman reached across the table, took the letter, and having glanced over it, said positively, "You are right, Miss Rosey, it is genuine."

It was characteristic of Poinsett's inconsistency that this statement was as sincere as his previous a.s.sent to the popular suspicion. When he took the letter in his hand, he at once detected the evident sincerity of its writer, and as quickly recognised the quaint honesty and simple nature of the man he had known. It was Gabriel Conroy, all over. More than that, he even recalled an odd memory of Grace in this frank directness and utter unselfishness of the brother who so plainly had never forgotten her. That all this might be even reconcilable with the fact of his marriage to the woman who had personated the sister, Arthur easily comprehended. But that it was his own duty, after he had impugned Gabriel's character, to make any personal effort to clear it, was not so plain. Nevertheless, he did not answer Mrs. Sepulvida's look, but walked gravely to the window, and looked out upon the sea, Mr. Dumphy, who, with the instincts of jealousy, saw in Poinsett's remark only a desire to ingratiate himself with Miss Rosey, was quick to follow his lead.

"It's a clear case of _quien sabe_ anyway," he said to the young lady, "and maybe you're right. Joe, pa.s.s the champagne."

Dyce and Pilcher looked up inquiringly at their leader, who glanced meaningly towards the open-mouthed Mr. Raynor, whose astonishment at this sudden change in public sentiment was unbounded.

"But look here," said that gentleman, "bless my soul! if this letter is genuine, your friends here--these gentlemen--have lost a hundred thousand dollars! Don't you see? If this news is true, and this man's information is correct, the stock really isn't worth"----

He was interrupted by a laugh from Messrs. Dyce and Pilcher.

"That's so. It would be a devilish good thing on Dyce!" said the latter, good-humouredly. "And as I'm in myself about as much again, I reckon I should take the joke about as well as he."

"But," continued the mystified Mr. Raynor, "do you really mean to say that you have any idea this news is true?"

"Yes," responded Pilcher, coolly.

"Yes," echoed Dyce, with equal serenity.

"You do?"

"We do."

The astonished tourist looked from the one to the other with undisguised wonder and admiration, and then turned to his wife. Had she heard it?

Did she fully comprehend that here were men accepting and considering an actual and present loss of nearly a quarter of a million of dollars, as quietly and indifferently as if it were a postage stamp! What superb coolness! What magnificent indifference! What supreme and royal confidence in their own resources. Was this not a country of G.o.ds? All of which was delivered in a voice that, although pitched to the key of matrimonial confidence, was still entirely audible to the G.o.ds themselves.

"Yes, gentlemen," continued Pilcher; "it's the fortune of war. T'other man's turn to-day, ours to-morrow. Can't afford time to be sorry in this climate. A man's born again here every day. Move along and pa.s.s the bottle."

What was that?

Nothing, apparently, but a rattling of windows and shaking of the gla.s.ses--the effect of a pa.s.sing carriage or children running on the piazza without. But why had they all risen with a common instinct, and with faces bloodless and eyes fixed in horrible expectancy? These were the questions which Mr. and Mrs. Raynor asked themselves hurriedly, unconscious of danger, yet with a vague sense of alarm at the terror so plainly marked upon the countenances of these strange, self-poised people, who, a moment before, had seemed the incarnation of reckless self-confidence, and inaccessible to the ordinary annoyances of mortals.

And why were these other pleasure-seekers rushing by the windows, and was not that a lady fainting in the hall? Arthur was the first to speak and tacitly answer the unasked question.

"It was from east to west," he said, with a coolness that he felt was affected, and a smile that he knew was not mirthful. "It's over now, I think." He turned to Mrs. Sepulvida, who was very white. "You are not frightened? Surely this is nothing new to you? Let me help you to a gla.s.s of wine."

Mrs. Sepulvida took it with a hysterical little laugh. Mrs. Raynor, who was now conscious of a slight feeling of nausea, did not object to the same courtesy from Mr. Pilcher, whose hand shook visibly as he lifted the champagne. Mr. Dumphy returned from the doorway, in which, to his own and everybody's surprise, he was found standing, and took his place at Miss Rosey's side. The young woman was first to recover her reckless hilarity.