Senorita Dona Eulogia favour us with a song?"

Don Carmelo was bowing before her, a guitar in his hand, his wrathful
eyes fixed upon Don Pablo.

"Yes," said Eulogia.

She took the guitar and sang a love-song in a manner which can best be
described as no manner at all; her expression never changed, her voice
never warmed. At first the effect was flat, then the subtle fascination
of it grew until the very memory of impassioned tones was florid and
surfeiting. When she finished, Ignestria's heart was hammering upon the
steel in which he fancied he had prisoned it.

IV

"Well," said Eulogia to Padre Moraga two weeks later, "am I not La
Favorita?"

"Thou art, thou little coquette. Thou hast a power over men which thou
must use with discretion, my Eulogia. Tell thy beads three times a day
and pray that thou mayest do no harm."

"I wish to do harm, my father, for men have broken the hearts of women
for ages--"

"Chut, chut, thou baby! Men are not so black as they are painted. Harm
no one, and the world will be better that thou hast lived in it."

"If I scratch, fewer women will be scratched," and she raised her
shoulders beneath the flowered muslin of her gown, swung her guitar
under her arm, and walked down the grove, the silver leaves shining
above her smoky hair.

The padre had bidden all the young people of the upper class to a picnic
in the old mission garden. Girls in gay muslins and silk rebosos were
sitting beneath the arches of the corridor or flitting under the trees
where the yellow apricots hung among the green leaves. Languid and
sparkling faces coquetted with caballeros in bright calico jackets and
knee-breeches laced with silken cord, their slender waists girt with
long sashes hanging gracefully over the left hip. The water rilled in
the winding creek, the birds carolled in the trees; but above all rose
the sound of light laughter and sweet strong voices.

They took their dinner behind the arches, at a table the length of the
corridor, and two of the young men played the guitar and sang, whilst
the others delighted their keen palates with the goods the padre had
provided.

Don Pablo sat by Eulogia, a place he very often managed to fill; but he
never had seen her for a moment alone.

"I must go soon, Eulogia," he murmured, as the voices waxed louder.
"Duty calls me back to Monterey."

"I am glad to know thou hast a sense of thy duty."

"Nothing but that would take me away from San Luis Obis