cradle up, and win distinction above all these. The world is an ass!
"And whose child is she?" I hear you ask. Well now, here is a little secret.
On her mother's side you must know that the last and best blood of a once great tribe is in her veins. And her father? Ah, that is the little secret. We only know. We laugh at the many guesses and speculations of the world, but we keep the little maiden's secret.
If I fail in my uncertain ventures with an un schooled pen, as I have failed in all other things, then she is not mine ; but if I win a name worth having, then that name shall be hers.
Getting along in her new life?
Well, here is a paragraph clipped from an article of many columns in a San Francisco journal:
"She is now fifteen years old, and is living in San Francisco, supported from the poet's purse. She is described as strikingly beautiful. She has her mother's deep, dark eyes, and wealth of raven hair, and her father's clear Caucasian skin. Her neighbours call her the beautiful Spanish girl, for they know not her romantic history; but to her own immediate friends she is known as the poet's gifted child. It is but justice to this rough, half-savage man, to say that he is exceedingly fond of her, and does everything in his power to make her comfortable and happy."
What a joke it would be on this modern Gorgon, this monster daily press of America that eats up men and women, soul and body, this monster that must be fed night and morning on live men who dare to come to the surface, if it should in this case be utterly mistaken!
