married, Señor Maestro; I am to get married like an American girl; just like an American girl!" she repeated, in glowing exultation.
"Oh!" said the Maestro, with lying fervour, "somebody has asked your hand, Señorita? Let me congratulate you. And who is the lucky fellow?"
"Asked my hand?" cried the Maestra, wonderingly. "No. I said like an American girl. Nobody has asked me the hand. I will marry like an American girl. This is leapa-year day. Just like an American girl!"
"But, gadzooks!" exclaimed the Maestro, at once frightened and horrified by this strange insistence, "American girls don't marry like that. Leap-year, that's just fiction, a legend, a joke. I told you about leap-year the other day; it's just a little joke—yes, that's it, a little joke!"
But the Maestra was proof against American bluff.
"American girls, they all, all marry on leapa-year," she said, severely. "You say so the other day, and all the American books say so. Here is a paper," she said, patting the Hearth Companion. "There are in it ten stories about American girls, and they all marry on leapa-year day; all, todas ask a gentleman to marry on leapa-year day. It is not a joke."
