Of course Mariquita kept her promise of being present at her father's marriage. It had never occurred to her that she could be absent; it was a duty of respect that she owed to him, and a duty of fellow-womanhood that she owed to Sarella.

It amused her a little to hear that a certain Mrs. Kane was to be present, in a sort of maternal quality, and that Mr. Kane was to give the bride away as a sort of official father. Mr. Kane might have seen Sarella a dozen times—in the parlor of the convent, which she was much given to frequent. Mrs. Kane had, so far as Mariquita was aware, never seen her at all—except at Mass.

They were Kentuckians who had moved west some twelve years earlier than Sarella herself, and, though they had not made a fortune, were sufficiently well off to be rather leading members of the congregation. Mrs. Kane's most outstanding characteristic was a genius for organizing bazaars, on a scale of ever-increasing importance; the first had been for the purchase of a harmonium, the last had been to raise funds for a new wing to the Convent; all her friends had prophesied failure for the first; no one had dared predict anything but dazzling success for the last. Mr. Kane was not less remarkable for his phenomenal success in the matter of whist-drives—and raffles. He would raffle the nose off your face if you would let him, and hand over an astonishing sum to the church when he had done it, with the most exquisite satisfaction that the proceeding was not strictly legal.

Both the Kanes were extremely amusing, and no one could decide which was the more good-natured of the two. Of week-day afternoons Mrs. Kane was quite sumptuously attired, Mr. Kane liked to be rather shabby even on Sundays at Mass, which caused him to be generally reported somewhat more affluent than he really was. He had always been supposed to be "about fifty," whereas Mrs. Kane had, ever since her arrival, spoken of herself as "on the sensible side of thirty."

At Sarella's wedding Mrs. Kane's magnificence deeply impressed the cowboys; and Mr. Kane's elaborate paternity towards the bride, whom he only knew by her dress, would have deceived if it had been possible the very elect; they were not precisely that and it did not deceive, though it hugely delighted them.

"I swear he's crying!" whispered Pete Rugger to Larry Burke. "He cried just like that in the play when Mrs. Hooger ran away with her own husband that represented the hero."

"Well," said Larry, "a man can't help his feelings."

He was secretly wondering if Mr. Kane would give away Ginger—he would do it so much better than Jack.

Mrs. Kane affected no tears. She had the air of serenely parting with a daughter, for her own good, to an excellent, wealthy husband whom she had found for her, and of being ready to do as much for the rest of her many daughters—Mr. and Mrs. Kane were childless.

Perhaps this attitude on her part suited better with her resplendent costume than it would have suited her husband's black attire—which he kept for funerals.

Little was lost on the cowboys, and they did not fail to note that the gray which of recent years had been invading the "Boss's" hair had disappeared.

"In the distance he don't look a lot older than Gore," Pete Rugger declared to his neighbor.

Gore supported Don Joaquin as "best" or groomsman.

It was significant that on Mariquita's appearance no spoken comment was made by any of the cowboys, though to each of them she was the most absorbing figure. Her father had fetched her from Loretto three days before the wedding, and at the Convent had been introduced to a learned-looking but agreeable ecclesiastic who was a rector of a college for lay youths.

Don Joaquin, much interested, had plied the reverend pundit with inquiries concerning this seat of learning, not forgetting particular inquisition as to the terms.

On their conclusion he took notes in writing of all the replies and declared that it sounded exactly what he would choose for his own son.

"I would like," he said, with a simplicity that rather touched the rector, "that my lad should grow up with more education than I ever had."

"Your son," surmised the rector, "would be younger than his sister?"

"He would," Don Joaquin admitted, without condescending upon particulars.