Whether "nunnish" or no, it was not "poky," but pleasant, very cheerful and bright, and very affectionate. It contained little jokish allusions to home matters, and former confidential talks, and one passage (much valued by Sarella) concerning a gown, retracting a former opinion and substituting another backed by most valid reasons. "If those speckled hens go on eating each other's feathers," said the letter, "you'll have to kill them and eat them. Once they start they never give it up, and it puts the idea in the others' heads. Feathers don't suit everybody, but fowls look wicked without them. I hope poor old Jack doesn't miss me; give him and Ginger my love, and ask him to forgive me for not marrying Mr. Gore--he gave me a terrible lecture about it, and Ginger said, 'Quit it, Dad! I _knew_ she wouldn't. I know sweethearts when I see them--though I never did see one--not of my own.' I expect Larry Burke will show her one soon, don't you, Sarella? It will do very well; Larry will have the looks and Ginger will have the sense, and teach him all he needs. He has such a good heart he can get on without _too_ much sense...." Sarella liked her letter, and decided that Mariquita was not lost, though removed. CHAPTER XXXIII. "I suppose," Don Joaquin remarked in a disengaged manner, "that, after all your preparations, we can fix the day for our wedding any time now." Sarella was not in the least taken in by his elaborate air of having been able, for _his_ part, to have fixed a day long ago. It was, however, part of her system to fall in with people's whimsies when nothing was to be gained by opposing or exposing them. "Oh, yes," she agreed, most amiably. "It will take three Sundays to publish the banns--any day after that. Meanwhile I should be received. Sister Aquinas says I am ready. As soon as we have settled the exact time, we must let Mariquita know, and you can, when the time comes, go over and fetch her home." Don Joaquin consented, and Sarella thought she would go and deliver Mariquita's message to Jack and his daughter. She found them together and began by saying, smilingly: "I expect you have known for a long while that there was a marriage in the air?" Old Jack had not learned to like her, and Ginger still disliked her smile. "I don't believe," she said perversely, for, of course, both she and her father understood perfectly, "that Miss Mariquita is going to be married. She's not that way." This was a discouraging opening, for it seemed to cast a sort of slur on young women who _were_ likely to be married. "Mr. Gore's never asked again!" cried Jack. "Dad, don't you be silly," Ginger suggested; "everyone knows Miss Mariquita wants to be a nun."