"Go where?" asked the boy.
"Oh, where?" she echoed, impatiently. "Hear me, Francisco; thou knowest
I am, like thee, an orphan; but I have not, like thee, a parent in the
Holy Church. For, alas," she added, bitterly, "I am not a boy, and
have not a lovely voice borrowed from the angels. I was, like thee, a
foundling, kept by the charity of the reverend fathers, until Don Juan,
a childless widower, adopted me. I was happy, not knowing and caring who
were the parents who had abandoned me, happy only in the love of him who
became my adopted father. And now--" She paused.
"And now?" echoed Francisco, eagerly.
"And now they say it is discovered who are my parents."
"And they live?"
"Mother of God! no," said the girl, with scarcely filial piety. "There
is some one, a thing, a mere Don Fulano, who knows it all, it seems, who
is to be my guardian."
"But how? tell me all, dear Juanita," said the boy with a feverish
interest, that contrasted so strongly with his previous abstraction that
Juanita bit her lips with vexation.
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