Chata and Chinita, Chapters XXI-XXII [pp. 51-64]

Chata and Chinita.
tors he had had. At first he did not recog nize her in the incongruous dress; but a
glance at the elfin face and the mop of
curls recalled to his mind the name Chi nita, and he held out his hand with a gesture
of welcome and surprise, and even found
words in his meagre stock of Spanish to ask
her where she had been.
"I have been in mi casa," she answered
with a great show of dignity. " Do you
not see, I am a lady, a grand lady?"
She had risen and spread out the silken
dress with her hands. The young man
caught one of the locks of her hair, and
pulled it teasingly, "JVo comprendo, I don't
understand. Tell me where is your madre? Where is your padre?"
Such a mixture of languages should have
been unintelligible, but Chinita understood
very well, and with a sudden prompting of
the spirit of mischief which was never far
fromn her, replied "Padre mio muerto! Americano, guero, como Ud. I Ohi, si Americano!"
"What," cried the young man in English,
"Your father dead! an American? fair,
like me?" He had clutched the lock so
tightly, as he rose in his bed in his excitement that her head was quite near him.
"Are you quite sure? Can it be possible?"
adding, with sudden remembrance.that, intelligent though she was, it was impossible
she should understand his foreign tongue,
and angry as he saw her at his vehemence,
it was unlikely she should care to divine his
meaning, "NViia bonita, pardon me! your
padre Americano! well that is wonderful!
Yo Americano! Yo Ashley Ward. Pardona me!"
Chinita was not to be at once appeased,
but she saw with inward delight that he was
much impressed by her claim, jestingly set
forth, to American parentage, and there
was something in the sound of his name that
recalled to her mind the man who had been
murdered so many years ago. She began
with a thousand gestures, which made somewhat intelligible her voluble Spanish, to give
an account of him. The young man lis tened with intense excitement, anathematiz ing his ignorance of the language in which she
spoke, yet convinced that chance had led
him to the very spot that he had had it in
his mind to seek. In the interest of her
narration, Chinita forgot the assertion she
had made; but her listener more than once
supposed that she alluded to it, and looked
intently upon her face to catch a glimpse of
some expression that shonld remind him
even of the race to which the man of whom
she spoke had belonged. But there was
nothing. The features, expression, color,
were those of a Mexican of mixed Spanish
and Indian types, with nothing individual
other than a weird beauty and vivacity, and
the peculiar hair, which had suggested the
namfie that even Dofia Isabel did not seek
to disassociate from her. For at the moment
when the interest of her narrative was at its
height and Ashley Ward had risen on his
pillows and was following her every gesture
with mute and rapt attention, the lady of
the mansion entered, calling breathlessly,
"Chinita, Chinita!" suddenly arresting her
steps, as she caught the concluding words"and so he was killed! and they say it was
not a man but the Devil who did it. But
for my part I don't believe it, for his ghost
can be seen under the tree or at the old Reduction Works any night, and it's not likely
Sefior Satan would give so much liberty to a
a soul he seemed so anxious to get."
Chinita had finished her sentence with a
certain defiance, for she felt guilty before
Dofia Isabel-not so much for being found
in the room of the wounded guest, as because of her borrowed attire; but Dofia Isabel did not seem to notice that. "Thou
art wreng to come here," she said; "thou
art wrong to talk like a galopina, a scullery
maid, of things thou dost not understand.
What did I hear thee say of an American as
I came in?"
"Did I say American?" retorted Chinita
with a laugh at the thought of the jest she
t
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