Her father noted shrewdly the new expression of grateful pleasure on her face. It seemed to him that Gore was not so incompetent as he had been supposing, to carry on his campaign. Sarella came out and joined them. "What a cunning little pin-cushion!" she exclaimed. "Isn't it just sweet?" The Agnus Dei was almost the only one of Mariquita's new treasures to which she could assign a use. "Oh, and the necklace! Garnets relieved by those crystal blobs are just the very fashion." "It is a rosary," Don Joaquin explained in a rather stately tone. It made him uneasy--it must be unlucky--to hear these frivolous eulogies applied to "holy objects" with which personally he had never had the familiarity that diminishes awe. Mariquita had plenty to do indoors and did not linger. Gore went in also to wash and tidy himself after his immensely long ride. Sarella, who of course knew long before this where Mariquita had received her education, and had been told whence these pious gifts came, smiled as she turned to Don Joaquin. "So Gore rode all the way to Denver this time," she remarked. "It is beyond Denver. Mariquita was pleased to hear news of her old friends." "Oh, I daresay. Gore is not such a fool as he looks." "I am not thinking that he looks a fool at all," said Don Joaquin, more stately than ever. ("How Spanish!" thought Sarella, "I suppose they're _born_ solemn.") "Indeed," she cheerfully agreed, "nor do I. He wouldn't be so handsome if he looked silly. He's all sense. And he knows his road, short cuts and all." Don Joaquin disliked her mention of Gore's good looks, as she intended. She had no idea of being snubbed by her elderly suitor. "Mariquita," he laid down, "will think more of his good sense than of his appearance. I have not brought her up to consider a gentleman's looks." Sarella laughed; she was not an easy person to "down." "But you didn't bring _me_ up," she said, "and I can tell you that you might have been as wise as Solomon and it wouldn't have mattered to me if you had been ugly. I'd rather look than listen any day; and I like to have something worth looking at." Her very pretty eyes were turned full on her mature admirer's face, and he did not dislike their flattery. An elderly man who has been very handsome is not often displeased at being told he is worth looking at still. "So do I, Sarellita," he responded, telling himself (and her) how much pleasure there was in looking at _her_. Stately he could not help being, but his manner had now no stiffness; and in the double diminutive of her name there was almost a tenderness, a nearer approach to tenderness than she could understand. She could understand, however, that he was more lover-like than he had ever been. A slight flush of satisfaction (that he took for maiden shyness) was on her face, as she looked up under her half-drooped eyelids.