people who lived in them had the same dark,
Spanish cast of face which she remembered of Antonio. Yet there the
resemblance ended. This was the home of squalor, of poverty that was not
self-respecting enough to be clean, and of an indolence which had
brought about a wretched state of affairs.

"Oh! is this it? But it can't be. Antonio's 'quarter' was a splendid
place. The old grandees lived there, keeping up a sort of court and
all the customs of a hundred years ago. It was 'a picture, a romance, a
dream,' he said. Of an evening he would describe it all to us at home
till I felt as if it were the one spot in the world I most wished to
see. But--_this!_"

"Turn not up your pretty nose, for '_this_,' my dear little
unenlightened maiden, is also a dream--a nightmare. Nevertheless, the
very ground your lost hero boasted and embellished with his fancy. The
more I hear of this versatile Antonio the greater becomes my longing
to behold him. In any case, since we're here, we must not go away
without entering some of these shops. You shall buy a trinket or two
and present one of them as a keepsake to this fine senor, when you
find him. Oh! that I had your familiar knowledge of his features,
this absent 'grandee,' that if by accident I met him I might know
him on the instant. See. This 'bazaar' is somewhat tidier than its
neighbors, as well as larger, and there are some really beautiful Navajo
blankets in the window. Unfortunately the pocketbook of a reporter
isn't quite equal to more than a dozen of these, at fifty dollars
apiece. Something more modest, Lady Jess, and I'll oblige you!"

She looked up to protest and saw that he was teasing, and exclaimed, with
an air of mock injury:

"Those or nothing! But when shall I learn to understand your jest from
earnest?"

"When you produce me your Antonio!"

"Upon the instant, then," she retorted, gayly.

Upon the instant, indeed, there were hurrying footsteps behind them, the
sound of some one breathing rapidly and of angrily muttered sentences,
that were a jumble of Spanish and English, and in a voice which made
Jessica Trent start and turn aside, clutching her companion's hand.

He turned, also, throwing his arm about her shoulders, lest the rush of
the man approaching should force her from the narrow sidewalk. But she
darted from him, straight into the path of this wild-looking person and
seized him with both hands, while she cried out:

"It's he! It is Antonio! I've found