was faintly blushing.

Early in the afternoon the piebald horses and dark brown chariot of the
Amadors drew up before the gateway. The young people were delighted
with Dona Felipa, and thought her blue eyes and tawny hair gave an added
piquancy to her colorless satin skin and otherwise distinctively
Spanish face and figure. Aunt Viney, who entertained Donna Maria, was
nevertheless watchful of the others; but failed to detect in Dick's
effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, any
suggestion of previous confidences. It was rather to Cecily that
Dona Felipa seemed to be characteristically exuberant and childishly
feminine. Both mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine
English, which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eyebrows,
her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen charming
intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in her active and
emphatic fan.

The young lady went over the house with Cecily curiously, as if
recalling some old memories. "Ah, yes, I remember it--but it was long
ago and I was very leetle--you comprehend, and I have not arrive mooch
when the old Don was alone. It was too--too--what you call melank-oaly.
And the old man have not make mooch to himself of company."

"Then there were no young people in the house, I suppose?" said Cecily,
smiling.

"No--not since the old man's father lif. Then there were TWO. It is a
good number, this two, eh?" She gave a single gesture, which took in,
with Cecily, the distant Dick, and with a whole volume of suggestion
in her shoulders, and twirling fan, continued: "Ah! two sometime make
one--is it not? But not THEN in the old time--ah, no! It is a sad story.
I shall tell it to you some time, but not to HIM."

But Cecily's face betrayed no undue bashful consciousness, and she only
asked, with a quiet smile, "Why not to--to my cousin?"

"Imbecile!" responded that lively young lady.

After dinner the young people proposed to take Dona Felipa into the rose
garden, while Aunt Viney entertained Donna Maria on the veranda. The
young girl threw up her hands with an affectation of horror. "Santa
Maria!--in the rose garden? After the Angelus, you and him? Have you not
heard?"

But here Donna Maria interposed. Ah! Santa Maria! What was all that!
Was it not enough to talk old woman's gossip and tell vaqueros tales at
home, without making uneasy the strangers? She would have none of it.
"Vamos!"

Nevertheless D