Paloma regarded the stranger in silence for a moment. Then, “He--he will think I am a cross girl,” she began regretfully. “But it is Anastacio that gives me the temper. One day,”--advancing a little--“he is all kind looks, Señor, and he says what is nice. Next day, he is all bad looks, and the serape is over his ears--ugh! One can never tell _how_ he will be. He is worse for changing than the sand of the river. Yes. And now he wishes back the ring! What do you think, _padrecito_?” She held out her left hand with a quick gesture. Upon the slender third finger of it, milk-white against the creamy smoothness of her skin, shone a single large pearl. “It cost him fifty dollars!”--this triumphantly. “Well! well!” said Señor John, coming forward to get a better look. “You think that much?” said Paloma. “So it is. But I would not wear a turquoise or a garnet, such as are picked up by the Indians not so far away--and I would not wear beaten silver, as do the squaws. No--my pearl, you see, is set in gold, and it was bought in Albuquerque, at the store that has high, glass windows.” “Indeed?” questioned the painter, even more impressed. “But whatever it cost,” went on Paloma, “Anastacio shall not have it back. What is given, is given. It is not _my_ fault that he cannot love my pretty Miguel. I said to him, ‘The good father has a peacock. And I----’” Father José held up a hand to interrupt her. “My peacock serves as a lesson to my Indians,” he said. “He is a living example of all that is least to be desired. He is beautiful, but useless; he talks loudly, but does nothing; he struts, but goes nowhere; he eats much, yet--since he is old--his flesh is not even good for food. Vain and ostentatious bird!--his life is a warning.” Paloma had scarcely heard him, having been waiting a chance to speak again. Now she continued promptly, mimicking her lover: “‘Miguel will take all your time,’ Anastacio complains. Well,”--argumentatively--“Miguel must be watched, else the dogs will chase him. Has not Anastacio said (more than once, señor,) that he himself is certain the dogs will do away with Miguel? So! And if I were not watching the little one, what then should I do? Make mud dishes?--like the Indians? Hah! _That_ for what Anastacio thinks! The pig!” Again she threw out her hand--with a loud snap of her fingers. “Hush!” whispered the father. “He is there.” He pointed through the window. “A-a-ah!” It was a purr. With a sudden step aside, and a sway of her shoulders, she looked past the young painter. “He is waiting for me!” she cried. “But I shall not go. No! I think that I even do not like him any more, and I may not marry him after all. He thinks himself so handsome! Puf!--with that moustache of his, like a bird’s-nest!” And she threw back her tumbled head, and shook her black hair and laughed aloud.