Page:The New Penelope.djvu/266

260 Sandy-haired Jim was one so dimly defined, so little understood, and so absolutely pure in its nature, that had Miss Edwards been made aware of it, she could only have seen in it the touching tribute which it was to abstract womanliness—to the "wimmen nater," of which Jim was so frank an admirer. The gulf which was between them had never yet been crossed, even in imagination, though it is presumable; that, unknown to himself, Jim was trembling on the verge of it at this moment, dragged thither by the excitement of prospective wealth and the possibilities involved in it, and by the recollection of the pleasant words and smiles of this, to him, queen of women.

After this gush of romance—the first and only one Jim had ever been guilty of—he returned the document to his pocket, and, with his customary deliberation, proceeded to catch and mount his horse, and before noon was on his way across the valley, toward that particular gorge in the mountain where el tesoro was supposed to be located. John Edwards stood in the house door watching him ambling over the waste, yellow plain, until Jim and his horse together appeared a mere speck in the distance, when he went to talk over with his sister the late transaction, and make some jesting remarks on the probability of the desired discovery.

The days sped by, and there remained but two before Christmas. John and his sister were consulting together over the arrangement of some evergreen arches and wreaths of bay-leaves. Miss Edwards was explaining where the floral ornaments should come in, where she would have this picture, and where that, and how it would be best to light the rooms.

"I confess, John," she said, sitting down to braid the scarlet berries of the native arbutus into a wreath with the leaves of the California nutmeg, "that I can not make it seem like winter or like Christmas, with these open doors, these flowers, and this warm sunlight streaming in at the windows. I do wish we could have a flurry of snow, to make it seem like the holidays."