ear the window and open door, and at these
sat a posse of girls, busy with deft, nimble fingers, making
cigarettes and cigars. These workpeople were under the immediate
control of Mariquita, the mistress's niece. She was popular with them,
evidently, for no one would answer when La Zandunga shrieked out an
angry inquiry to each.

No answer was needed. There was Mariquita at the end of the garden,
gossiping across the fence with young Sergeant McKay.

It was quite an accident, of course. The serjeant, returning to his
quarters from Waterport, had seen Mariquita within, and made her a
signal she could not mistake.

"I knew you would come out," he said, pleasantly, when she appeared,
shy and shrinking, yet with a glad light in her eyes.

"_Vaya!_ what conceit! I was seeking a flower in the garden," she
answered demurely; but her low voice and heightened colour plainly
showed that she was ready to come to him whenever he called--to follow
him, indeed, all over the world.

She spoke in Spanish, with its high-flown epithets and exaggerated
metaphor, a language in which Stanislas McKay, from his natural
aptitude and this charming tutorship, had made excellent progress.

"My life, my jewel, my pearl!" he cried.

A pearl, indeed, incomparable and above price for all who could
appreciate the charms and graces of bright blooming girlhood.

Mariquita Hidalgo was still in her teens--a woman full grown, but with
the frank, innocent face of a child. A slender figure, tall, but
well-rounded and beautifully poised, having the free, elastic movement
of her Spanish ancestors, whose women are the best walkers in the
world. She had, too, the olive complexion as clear and transparent as
wax, the full crimson lips, the magnificent eyes, dark and lustrous,
the indices of an ardent temperament capable of the deepest passion,
the strongest love, or fiercest hate.

A very gracious figure indeed was this splendid specimen of a handsome
race, as she stood there coyly talking to the man of her choice.

The contrast was strongly marked between them. She, with raven hair,
dark skin, and soft brown eyes, was a perfect Southern brunette:
quick, impatient, impulsive, easily moved. He, fresh-coloured,
blue-eyed, with flaxen moustache, stalwart in frame, self-possessed,
reserved, almost cold and impassive in demeanour, was as excellent a
type of a native of the North.

"What brings you this way, Senor don Sargento, at this time of day?"
said