One minit,
miss! one minit! Don't ye! don't ye do that! Ef ye forget (and I
don't blame ye for it), ef ye forget that I'm a man, don't ye,
don't ye forget that you're a woman! Sit ye down, sit ye down, so!
Now, ef ye'll kindly remember, miss, I never saw this yer man, yer
lover. Ef ye'll recollect, miss, whenever you met him, I allers
hung back and waited round in the mission or in the fields beyond
for ye, and allowed ye to hev your own way, it bein' no business o'
mine. Thar isn't a man on the ranch, who, ef he'd had a mind to
watch ye, wouldn't hev known more about yer lover than I do.
Jovita (aside). He speaks truly. He always kept in the
background. Even Don Juan never knew that I had an attendant until
I told him. (Aloud.) I made a mistake, Diego. I was hasty. What
am I to do? He is waiting for me even now.
Sandy. Well (with drunken gravity), ef ye can't go to him, I
reckon it's the squar thing for him to come to ye.
Jovita. Recollect yourself, Diego. Be a man!
Sandy. Fash jus war I say. Let him be a man, and come to ye here.
Let him ride up to this ranch like a man, and call out to yer
father that he'll take ye jist as ye are, without the land. And if
the old man allows, rather than hev ye marry that stranger, he'll
give this yer place to the church, why, let him do it, and be
damned.
Jovita (recoiling, aside). So! That is their plan. Don Jose has
worked on the fears or the cupidity of this drunken ingrate.
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