Part 28 (1/2)
After landing we put our se into a fly and were driven to an hotel in Calle Lima, an out-of-the-way place kept by a German; but I knew the house to be a quiet, respectable one and very es
About five o'clock in the afternoon ere together in the sitting-roo down on the street froentle ladies in it drew up before the door
”Oh, Richard,” exclaireatest excitehters, and they are getting out!”
”Who is Villaverde?” I asked
”What, do you not know? He is a Judge of First Instance, and his daughters are e to meet them like this? Oh, I must see thean to cry
The waiter ca an intervieith the Senorita Peralta
De to soothe Paquita's intense excitee into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the roo; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishether for soular e had spent itself, Senor Villaverde, who stood looking on with grave, i her that his old friend, General Santa Coloma, had just informed him of her arrival in Buenos Ayres and of the hotel where she was staying Probably she did not even knoho he was, he said; he was her relation; his mother was a Peralta, a first cousin of her unhappy father, Colonel Peralta He had cohters to invite her toher stay in Buenos Ayres He also wished to help her with her affairs, which, his friend the General had informed him, were in some confusion He had, he concluded, many influential friends in the sister city, ould be ready to assist hi fro that Paquita's great friends were her visitors, thanked him warmly and accepted his offer of a honity and self-possession one would hardly expect frost fashi+onable people for the first tireeted her new-found relations and thanked the Demetria aith them at once, she left us towith her friends, having many questions to ask them She was consumed with anxiety to kno her family, and especially her father, who arded her elopee withor would not tell her what they knew
Poor Deiven her for reflection, taken the wise course of at once accepting the offer of her influential and extrenified kinsman; but it was hard for her to leave her friends at such short notice, and when she came back prepared for her departure the separation tried her severely With tears in her eyes she bade Paquita farewell, but when she tooklips refused to speak Overcoth said, addressing her visitors, ”For my escape frofriend who has been a brother to me”
Senor Villaverde listened and bowed towardsin his stern, calht throughbeyond His manner towardsoff with his friend's daughter--how great his indignation againstone smile or one kind word on me to thank me for all I had done for his kinswonation of e to see theladies, I tried to find out so for myself ”Pray tell me, senorita,” I said, ”what you know about my father-in-law If it is very bad, I promise you my wife shall not hear a word of it; but it is best that I should know the truth before ht, expressive face, while she glanced anxiously at Paquita; then, bending towards me, she whispered, ”Ah, my friend, he is implacable! I am so sorry, for Paquita's sake” And then, with a smile of irrepressible coquetry, she added, ”And for yours”
The carriage drove away, and De back at me, were filled with tears, but in Senor Villaverde's eyes, also glancing back, there was an expression that boded ill forwas natural, perhaps, for he was the father of two very pretty girls
Implacable, and I was now divided fro I had irl under age without her father's consent