lhelm?" she said, with a beaming look.

"My sweetest Pilar," he answered, and clasped her to his breast. His
heart was really full to overflowing at that moment She took his arm
and proceeded to lead him about the room, showing and explaining the
various objects to him. "This is my mamma as she looked twenty-five
years ago, when she went to the Feria at Seville. That is a sort of
fair at Easter, and one of the most famous popular festivals of Spain.
We must go to it some day together. And that is my late father as
major-general. Here he is in the robes of a Knight of San Iago, one of
our highest military orders. It has existed since the twelfth century,
and, strangely enough, one of my ancestors was among its first members.
These are my father's decorations and badges of office. Come and look
at this clock, it is quite unique. The province of Cordova had it made,
and presented it to my father when he gave up his command there. I
suppose you recognized this pastel. It is a very good likeness. Do you
think it pretty?"

"Pretty! The word is a gross injustice. Say rather exquisitely,
ravishingly beautiful."

"Thanks, my Wilhelm. And if you had known me then, you would have loved
me and wanted to marry me, would you not?"

"But you would hardly have wanted to marry me, a poor devil of a
plebeian, who was badly dressed and did not even know how to dance."

"Do not make fun of me, you sweet, bad creature; if I had had as much
sense then as I have now, I should have loved you then as I love you
now, and I would have belonged to you, even if it had cost me my
father's love." She gazed thoughtfully at the picture in which her
innocent past confronted her in so angelic a form, and continued in
tones of indescribable tenderness: "Why did I not know you sooner? Is
it my fault that you who were made for me should live so far away and
wait so long before you came to me? How I should have rejoiced to be
able to offer you the pure young creature of this picture! But I can
but give you all I have--my first real love, the virginity of my
heart--surely that is something?"

Her hazel eyes pleaded for a great deal of compassion, and her full
scarlet lips for a great deal of love, and only a heart of cast iron
could have refused her either.

Beyond the salon was a roomy dining-room, hung with magnificent Cordova
leather, and from this a glass door led into a pretty little garden
with an arbor in the corner, and some old trees. High, i