I wasn't up to writing you yesterday--I'm not really able to, now, but I'll try to tap you out a few feeble lines.... Oh, yes, she came. She's here! As some of my vaude-villains would say--I'll say she is! M.D. and I met the steamer, the _Pearl of Peru_. Gentle, innocent-sounding name, isn't it? Sounds as if it might fitly convoy the dewy-eyed dove of my dreams.... It took a long time to dock and all the passengers were at the rail. I looked in vain for my daughter-to-be, but I was particularly struck by a sad, broken-looking, elderly man whose eager eyes raked the wharf. He turned to ask a question of a large girl beside him, a creature clad in strident hues, furrily powdered, bearing a caged parrot in one hand, a shivering, hairless, Mexican dog under her arm, a cigarette in her mouth. Her gaze became riveted upon me. She emitted a piercing shriek of joy. "_Madre virgen de mi alma!_" Then, in order that all persons present on shipboard and on the wharf might have the benefit of her remark, she translated it--"Virgin Mother of my soul!"--and every one at once laid by all other preoccupations and gave himself whole-heartedly to looking and listening. I have never seen a more radiant expression of joy and release than that which overspread the countenance of the geologist at sight of me, and even at that instant I began to understand his emotion. It seemed an hour before the gangplank was put down. Dolores Tristeza held the parrot up so that she might see me. "Behold the virgin mother of my soul!" "Shut your ugly mouth!" shrieked the sweet bird, happily in Spanish. "See, little mother mine," called Dolores, shaking the cage, "Santa Catalina, the parrot of a thousand pretty talents! And here"--she held up the hairless, squirming canine--"behold little Jose-Maria, joy of my orphan heart!" I got as close to her as possible and besought her to moderate her transports until she had landed, and I was amazed and aghast and horrified at the size of her. "But, how you've grown, Dolores!" I stammered. She chuckled gleefully. "They lied to thee at the _Hospicio, Madrecita_. I was not twelve years but past fourteen! They desired, naturally, to keep me with them in the juvenile department. Thus am I loved wherever I go! Dost thou not burn to fold me to thy breast?" What I burned to do at that instant was to turn the _Pearl of Peru_ about and send her speeding swiftly back across the foam.