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Updated: June 1, 2025
Mariquita Hidalgo was still in her teens a woman full grown, but with the frank, innocent face of a child. A slender figure, tall, but well-rounded and beautifully poised, having the free, elastic movement of her Spanish ancestors, whose women are the best walkers in the world.
"Words can never express my feelings towards you and your father, dear Manuela. Indeed I have never been in the habit of saying much least of all when I have felt much. Mariquita and I will bless you both to the latest hour of our lives. Adieu. We meet in the morning at the house in which you are staying Lawrence has named it the house with the rustic porch and we start from there.
Wait; he'll weather the storm." Mariquita would shake her head hopelessly and go about her appointed task with an unflagging but despairing diligence that was touching to see. Uncle Barto, as he always wished her to call him, was the first to tell her the good news. "He's found, my dear. What did I tell you? They couldn't keep him; I knew that." "The Holy Virgin be praised!" cried Mariquita.
"Idiot that I was to blurt it out like that, after thinking all the week how best to break the news! Mariquita! Mariquita! speak to me, I implore you!" But the poor child was too much overcome to reply, and he led her, dazed and half-fainting, to a little seat near the house, where, with soft caresses and endearing words, he sought to restore her to herself. "The war!" she said, at length.
She was discussing the heroine of a book which they had been reading in turns, pointing out the inconsistencies in her behaviour, and expatiating on the superior manner in which she Mariquita would have behaved, had positions been reversed.
He was too wise, however, in the presence of the colonel to take any demonstrative notice of her. He merely shook hands with both ladies, and congratulated them on their escape from the banditti. "You have rendered us good service, senhor," said Mariquita, with a brilliant smile a smile that was indeed more brilliant than there seemed any occasion for.
"Mariquita!" she called again and again, till at length, overflowing with passion, she rushed from behind the counter into the premises at the back of the shop. She entered a small but well-lighted room, communicating with a few square feet of garden. At the end was a low fence; beyond this the roadway intervening between the garden and the Line wall, or seaward fortifications.
"Yes," she went on; "you always seemed to be looking carefully for anything you could find that was as insipid as a water-melon. You can't, you know, possibly count your love-affairs as amongst your successes." She jerked her head back, her lips retracted in a kind of grin. "Mariquita de Rojas!" she jeered. He started, though not much. "I never knew you knew about that," he said mildly.
My father knew you were in Peru at the time, and his purpose was to wait till you should return, and present Mariquita unexpectedly to you to see if you would recognise each other. Therefore he did not mention her when he wrote asking you so urgently to return here. Neither did he mention his suspicions to Mariquita herself.
As soon as Mariquita had mastered this astounding story she hurried to the kitchen, and as I heard her relating something with great excitement, I have little doubt that a legend of English Basques is now well on its way past historic doubt. Leaving her to consider the news I had brought, I went out with my boatman to view the old town. I found it quaint and individual and lovely.
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