Two years
afterwards, Antonia followed her brother to New York, and this
time, the mother made less opposition. Perhaps she divined
that opposition would have been still more useless than in the
case of the boy. For Robert Worth had one invincible
determination; it was, that this beautiful child, who so much
resembled a mother whom he idolized, should be, during the
most susceptible years of her life, under that mother's
influence.
And he was well repaid for the self-denial her absence
entailed, when Antonia came back to him, alert, self-reliant,
industrious, an intelligent and responsive companion, a neat
and capable housekeeper, who insensibly gave to his home that
American air it lacked, and who set upon his table the well-
cooked meats and delicate dishes which he had often longed
for.
John, the youngest boy, was still in New York finishing his
course of study; but regarding Isabel, there seemed to be a
tacit relinquishment of the purpose, so inflexibly carried out
with her brothers and sister. Isabel was entirely different
from them. Her father had watched her carefully, and come to
the conviction that it would be impossible to make her nature
take the American mintage. She was as distinctly Iberian as
Antonia was Anglo-American.
In her brothers the admixture of races had been only as alloy
to metal.
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