"Well, look here," said Cranch, with the same easy, good-natured,
practical directness which the priest remembered, and which would have
passed for philosophy in a more thoughtful man, "put it squarely, then.
In the first place, it was Don Juan and the alcalde who first suggested
you might be the child."
"But you have said you knew it was Francisco all the time," interrupted
Juanita.
"I did; but when I found the priest would not assist me at first, and
admit that the acolyte was a girl, I preferred to let him think I
was deceived in giving a fortune to another, and leave it to his own
conscience to permit it or frustrate it. I was right. I reckon it was
pretty hard on the old man, at his time of life, and wrapped up as he
was in the girl; but at the moment he came up to the scratch like a
man."
"And to save him you have deceived me? Thank you, Senor," said the girl
with a mock curtsey.
"I reckon I preferred to have you for a wife than a daughter," said
Cranch, "if that's what you mean. When you know me better, Juanita," he
continued, gravely, "you'll know that I would never have let you believe
I sought in you the one if I had not hoped to find in you the other.
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