"The snow on the Sierras is not more spotlessly pure of any trace or contamination of the mud of the mining ditches, than she of her mother and her past.
The knowledge of it, the mere breath of suspicion of it, in her presence would be a profanation, sir! Look at her eye--open as the sky and as clear; look at her face and figure--as clean, sir, as a Blue-Grass thoroughbred! Look at the way she carries herself, whether in those white frillings of her simple school-gown, or that black evening dress that makes her look like a princess! And, blank me, if she isn't one! There's no poor stock there--no white trash--no mixed blood, sir.

Blank it all, sir, if it comes to THAT--the Arguellos--if there's a hound of them living--might go down on their knees to have their name borne by such a creature! By the Eternal, sir, if one of them dared to cross her path with a word that wasn't abject--yes, sir, ABJECT, I'd wipe his dust off the earth and send it back to his ancestors before he knew where he was, or my name isn't Harry Pendleton!" Hopeless and inconsistent as all this was, it was a wonderful sight to see the colonel, his dark stern face illuminated with a zealot's enthusiasm, his eyes on fire, the ends of his gray moustache curling around his set jaw, his head thrown back, his legs astride, and his gold-headed stick held in the hollow of his elbow, like a lance at rest! Paul saw it, and knew that this Quixotic transformation was part of HER triumph, and yet had a miserable consciousness that the charms of this Dulcinea del Toboso had scarcely been exaggerated.

He turned his eyes away, and said quietly,-- "Then you don't think this coincidence will ever awaken any suspicion in regard to her real mother ?" "Not in the least, sir--not in the least," said the colonel, yet, perhaps, with more doggedness than conviction of accent.

"Nobody but yourself would ever notice that police report, and the connection of that woman's name with his was not notorious, or I should have known it." "And you believe," continued Paul hopelessly, "that Miss Yerba's selection of the name was purely accidental ?" "Purely--a school-girl's fancy.

Fancy, did I say?
No, sir; by Jove, an inspiration!" "And," continued Paul, almost mechanically, "you do not think it may be some insidious suggestion of an enemy who knew of this transient relation that no one suspected ?" To his final amazement Pendleton's brow cleared! "An enemy?
Gad! you may be right.