you wuz firs' down dar
fur to ax me to come up yer to nuss--specks yer seen me an' Jinny?"

Celestine nodded grimly: a confession was evidently on the way.

"Yessum, Miss Selsty, I reckoned yer seen us. We wuz _shoutin_'," Looth
went on, with gentle satisfaction. "I's a very rilligeous 'oman, Miss
Selsty, yessum. An' so's Jinny too."

All the Gracias friends came down often to East Angels to inquire after
Mrs. Rutherford; Madam Ruiz and Madam Giron came over from their
respective plantations. Adolfo Torres, however, did not come; he
remained at home, and sent his respectful inquiries by his aunt. Neither
the Doctor nor Mr. Moore had betrayed his secret; these two gentlemen
were not in the habit of betraying anybody. Torres did not altogether
like their reticence upon this particular occasion, he could not see
that it was a subject upon which reticence was required. In the old days
(the only days he cared about) the position of suitor, devoted suppliant
for his lady's hand, was an honorable one, one distinctly recognized; he
should like to be recognized as occupying it now. But if these friends
would not tell, he could not; to tell would not accord with his present
posture. "Posture" was his own word, no one else would have dreamed of
applying it to anything connected with this self-controlled young man.
Gracias, too, was having veritable postures of another kind to look at.
These were the attitudes of Manuel Ruiz, which were very new and
surprising. After that first burst of fury (which Torres had witnessed)
he had taken to riding over the barren at headlong speed on his large,
thin black horse, with several knives stuck in his belt--a belt whose
presence (in itself brigandish) he had further emphasized by tying over
it a crimson sash. Next he had suddenly appeared as a man of
dissipations, a scoffer; he haunted the two small, rather sleepy
bar-rooms of Gracias, smoking large cigars, wearing his sombrero much on
one side, and in public places--the plaza for instance--made cynical
remarks about "the fair sex." This was worse even than the knives and
the galloping, and Gracias was considering what had better be done,
when, lo! Manuel appeared among them playing a third part. He was not
only himself, but more mellifluous even than he had ever been before;
his manner, indeed, when he met any of these ladies, had in it such a
delicate yet keenly personal admiration, such an appreciation of what
they had been as well as of