She was, I fancy, about
fourteen years old, slender and graceful in figure, and with a
marvellously clear white skin, on which this bright Oriental sun had
not painted one freckle. Her features were, I think, the most perfect
I have ever seen in any human being, and her golden brown hair hung
in two heavy braids behind, almost to her knees. As I approached, she
looked up to me out of sweet, grey-blue eyes; there was a bashful smile
on her lips, but she did not move or speak. On the willow-branch over
her head were two young doves; they were, it appeared, her pets, unable
yet to fly, and she had placed them there. The little things had crept
up just beyond her reach, and she was trying to get them by pulling
the branch down towards her.
Leaving my horse, I came to her side.
"I am tall, senorita," I said, "and can perhaps reach them."
She watched me with anxious interest while I gently pulled her birds
from their perch and transferred them to her hands. Then she kissed
them, well-pleased, and with a gentle hesitation in her manner asked
me in.
Under the corridor I made the acquaintance of her grandfather, the
white-haired old man, and found him a person it was very easy to get
on with, for he agreed readily with everything I said. Indeed, even
before I could get a remark out he began eagerly assenting to it.
There, too, I met the girl's mother, who was not at all like her
beautiful daughter, but had black hair and eyes, and a brown skin, as
most Spanish-American women have.
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