Curse of Capistrano - Status

So Don Diego shook hands with Don Carlos Pulido and mounted his horse and rode slowly down the trail; and Don Carlos turned about and entered his house again and faced his wife and daughter, standing before the latter with his hands on his hips and regarding her with something akin to sorrow.

"He is the greatest catch in all the country!" Doña Catalina was wailing; and she dabbed at her eyes with a delicate square of filmy lace.

"He has wealth and position and could mend my broken fortunes if he were but my son-in-law," Don Carlos declared, not taking his eyes from his daughter's face.

"He has a magnificent house, and a hacienda besides, and the best horses near Reina de Los Angeles, and he is sole heir to his wealthy father," Doña Catalina said.

"One whisper from his lips into the ear of his excellency, the governor, and a man is made—or unmade," added Don Carlos.

"He is handsome—"

"I grant you that!" exclaimed the Señorita Lolita, lifting her pretty head and glaring at them bravely. "That is what angers me! What a lover the man could be, if he would! Is it anything to make a girl proud to have it said that the man she married never looked at another woman, and so did not select her after dancing and talking and playing at love with others?"

"He preferred you to all others, else he would not have ridden out to-day," Don Carlos said.


- The Curse of Capistrano, Chapter 7