Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/48

Rh After reading this letter, Roger told his host that he should have to leave him. The young Peruvian demurred, objected, and begged for a reason.

"Well," said Roger, "I find I am in love with your sister." The words sounded on his ear as if some else had spoken them. Teresita's light was quenched, and she had no more fascination than a smouldering lamp, smelling of oil.

"Why, my dear fellow," said his friend, "that seems to me a reason for staying. I shall be most happy to have you for a brother-in-law."

"It 's impossible! I am engaged to a young lady in my own country."

"You are in love here, you are engaged there, and you go where you are engaged! You Englishmen are strange fellows!"

"Tell Teresa that I adore her, but that I am pledged at home. I would rather not see her."

And so Roger departed from Lima, without further communion with Teresita. On his return home he received a letter from her brother, telling him of her engagement to a young merchant of Valparaiso,—an excellent match. The young lady sent him her salutations. Roger, answering his friend's letter, begged that the Doña Teresa would accept, as a wedding-present, of the accompanying trinket,—a little brooch in turquoise. It would look very well with pink!

Roger reached home in the autumn, but left Nora at school till the beginning of the Christmas holidays. He occupied the interval in refurnishing his house, and clearing the stage for the last act of the young girl's childhood.