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Updated: June 7, 2025
That part of the narrative which had to do with the death of Dona Isabel and the finding of the gold coin was new to O'Reilly and he found himself considerably impressed by it. When Esteban had finished, Norine drew a deep breath. "Oh! That lays over any story I ever heard. To think that the deeds and the jewels and everything are in the well AT THIS MINUTE! How COULD you go away and leave them?"
Norine possessed a dominant personality; she had a knack of tactfully controlling and directing situations, but of a sudden she experienced a panic-stricken nutter and she lost her air of easy confidence. "Not now," she exclaimed, with a visible lessening of color. "Don't bother to tell me now." "I've waited too long; I must speak."
"Now let me look at the jewels." "Rosa has them. She's wearing them on her back. Hunched backs are lucky, you know; hers is worth a fortune." "Why, this beats the Arabian Nights!" Norine gasped. "It beats " Branch paused, then wagged his head warningly at the girl. "I don't believe a word of it and you mustn't. Johnnie read this story on his yachting-trip. It couldn't happen.
Ever since Norine had so rudely shattered his romantic fancies the major had treated both her and O'Reilly with a stiff and distant formality. He began now by saying: "I am despatching a message to General Gomez's headquarters, asking him to send a pack-train and an escort for these supplies. There is danger here; perhaps you would like to go on with the couriers."
So numerous and so noisy did these diversions become that Norine, fearing for the welfare of her patient, banished O'Reilly's visitors and bore him and Branch off to her own cabin, leaving the brother and sister alone. In the privacy of Norine's quarters O'Reilly finished telling her the more important details of his adventures.
Euphrasie, the younger one, she who was shouting, was a skinny creature of seventeen, light-haired, with a long, lean, pointed face, uncomely and malignant; whereas the elder, Norine, barely nineteen, was a pretty girl, a blonde like her sister, but having a milky skin, and withal plump and sturdy, showing real shoulders, arms, and hips, and one of those bright sunshiny faces, with wild hair and black eyes, all the freshness of the Parisian hussy, aglow with the fleeting charm of youth.
"I was about to write to you, for I wanted to see you before going away. My little sister here would have taken you the letter." Cecile Moineaud was indeed there, together with the younger girl, Irma. The mother, unable to absent herself from her household duties, had sent them to make inquiries, and give Norine three big oranges, which glistened on the table beside the bed.
And even nowadays she occasionally called on the sisters, well pleased to spend an hour in that nook of quiet toil, which the laughter and the play of the child enlivened. She there felt herself to be far away from the world, and suffered less from her own misfortunes. And Norine kissed her hands, declaring that without her the little household of the two mothers would never have managed to exist.
"I've found my rainbow's end," said he. "And I've found mine," O'Reilly asserted. "I've gained your father's treasure, and more I've found the prize of all the Indies." With his arm about Rosa he drew her into the house. Esteban lowered himself into his chair and Norine rested herself upon its arm. He lay back with eyes closed. From the regions at the rear came the voice of Jacket.
She would have paralyzed his infant faculties, and have prevented him in the class from following the pointer of Mademoiselle Merlin, as she sniffled through her sing-song lecture before the map of Europe, or the table of weights and measures, if Norine had not been there to reassure and encourage him.
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