nge matters so as to be at the
same table with Mrs. Harold; perhaps even her partner."

"I will be more than watchful," Manuel declared; "I will be determined!"

"I play a wretched game," said the northern lady, warningly.

"And if you should play the best in the world, I should never know it,
absorbed as I should be in your personal presence," replied the youth,
with ardor.

Mrs. Harold laughed. Winthrop (listening to Mrs. Thorne's remarks upon
Emerson) glanced towards their little group.

"People do not talk in that way at the North. That is why she laughs,"
said Garda, explanatorily.

"And do I care how they talk in their frozen North!" cried Manuel. "I
talk as my heart dictates."

"Do so," said Garda, "but later. At present, go and cheer up poor Mr.
Torres; he is fairly shivering with loneliness over there in his
corner."

Manuel, who, in spite of his studied attitude at the feet of Mrs.
Harold, was evidently the slave of whatever whim Garda chose to express,
rose to obey. "But do not in the least imagine that Adolfo needs
cheering," he explained, still posing a little as he stood before them
with his guitar. "He entertains himself perfectly, always; he is never
lonely, he has only to think of his ancestors. Adolfo is, in fact, a
very good ancestor already. As to his shivering--that shows how little
you know him; he is a veritable volcano, that silent one! Still, I obey
your bidding, I go."

"What do _you_ think of him?" said Garda, as he crossed the room towards
the solitary Cuban.

"Mr. Torres?"

"No; Mr. Ruiz."

"I know him so slightly, I cannot say I have formed an opinion."

Garda looked at the two young men for a moment; then, "They are both
boys," she said, dismissing them with a little wave of her hand.

"But Mr. Winthrop is not a boy," she went on, her eyes returning to the
northern lady's face. "How old is Mr. Winthrop?"

"I don't know."

"Isn't he your cousin?"

"Mr. Winthrop is the nephew of Mrs. Rutherford, who is only my aunt by
marriage."

"But if you have always known him, you must know how old he is."

"I have not always known him. I suppose he is thirty-four or five."

"That is just what he said," remarked Garda, reflectively.

"That I was thirty-four or five?"

"No; but he began in the same way. He said that he did not know; that
you were not his cousin; that you were the niece of Mr. Rutherford; and
that he supposed you to be about twenty-seven or eight."

"I am twe