enough."

The padre smiled; he was used to her.

"Thou little wise one!" He collected himself suddenly. "But thou art
right to build thy hopes of happiness on the next world alone." Then
he continued, as if he merely had broken the conversation to say the
Angelus: "And thou art sure that thou wilt be La Favorita? Truly, thou
hast confidence in thyself--an inexperienced chit who has not half the
beauty of many other girls."

"Perhaps not; but the men shall love me better, all the same. Beauty is
not everything, my father. I have a greater attraction than soft eyes
and a pretty mouth."

"Indeed! Thou baby! Why, thou art no bigger than a well-grown child, and
thy mouth was made for a woman twice thy size. Where dost thou keep that
extraordinary charm?" Not but that he knew, for he liked her better
than any girl in the town, but he felt it his duty to act the part of
curb-bit now and again.

"You know, my father," said Eulogia, coolly; "and if you have any doubt,
wait until to-morrow."

The ball was given in the long sala of Dona Antonia Ampudia, on the edge
of the rambling town. As the night was warm, the young people danced
through the low windows on to the wide corridor; and, if watchful eyes
relaxed their vigilance, stepped off to the grass and wandered among
the trees. The brown old women in dark silks sat against the wall, as
dowagers do to-day. Most of the girls wore bright red or yellow gowns,
although softer tints blossomed here and there. Silken black hair was
braided close to the neck, the coiffure finished with a fringe of
chenille. As they whirled in the dance, their full bright gowns looked
like an agitated flower-bed suddenly possessed by a wandering tribe of
dusky goddesses.

Eulogia came rather late. At the last moment her mother had wavered in
her part of the contract, and it was not until Eulogia had sworn by
every saint in the calendar that she would not leave the sala, even
though she stifled, that Dona Pomposa had reluctantly consented to take
her. Eulogia's perfect little figure was clad in a prim white silk gown,
but her cold brilliant eyes were like living jewels, her large mouth was
as red as the cactus patches on the hills, and a flame burned in either
cheek. In a moment she was surrounded by the young men who had been
waiting for her. It might be true that twenty girls in the room were
more beautiful than she, but she had a quiet manner more effective than
animation, a vigorous magnetis