from it at the
top of her speed.

The lane passed before the rear wall of Saltello's garden.
Unfortunately, at the angle of the fence stood a beautiful
Madrono-tree, brilliant with its scarlet berries, and endeared to me as
Consuelo's favorite haunt, under whose protecting shade I had more than
once avowed my youthful passion. By the irony of fate Chu Chu caught
sight of it, and with a succession of spirited bounds instantly made
for it. In another moment I was beneath it, and Chu Chu shot like a
rocket into the air. I had barely time to withdraw my feet from the
stirrups, to throw up one arm to protect my glazed sombrero and grasp
an over-hanging branch with the other, before Chu Chu darted off. But
to my consternation, as I gained a secure perch on the tree and looked
about me, I saw her--instead of running away--quietly trot through the
open gate into Saltello's garden.

Need I say that it was to the beneficent Enriquez that I again owed my
salvation? Scarcely a moment elapsed before his bland voice rose in a
concentrated whisper from the corner of the garden below me. He had
divined the dreadful truth!

"For the love of God, collect to yourself many kinds of thees berry!
All you can! Your full arms round! Rest tranquil. Leave to your ole
oncle to make for you a delicate exposure. At the instant!"

He was gone again. I gathered, wonderingly, a few of the larger
clusters of parti-colored fruit and patiently waited. Presently he
reappeared, and with him the lovely Consuelo--her dear eyes filled with
an adorable anxiety.

"Yes," continued Enriquez to his sister, with a confidential lowering
of tone but great distinctness of utterance, "it is ever so with the
American! He will ever make _first_ the salutation of the flower or the
fruit, picked to himself by his own hand, to the lady where he call. It
is the custom of the American hidalgo![156-1] My God--what will you?
_I_ make it not--it is so! Without doubt he is in this instant doing
thees thing. That is why we have let go his horse to precede him here;
it is always the etiquette to offer these things on the feet. Ah!
Behold! it is he!--Don Francisco! Even now he will descend from thees
tree! Ah! You make the blush, little sister (archly)! I will retire! I
am discreet; two is not company for the one! I make tracks! I am gone!"

How far Consuelo entirely believed and trusted her ingenious brother I
do not know, nor even then cared to inquire. For there was a pre