dheartedness they did
their best, though Heaven knows what it must have cost them. Dick also did
his best, with a conscientious American pronunciation; but where tongues
halted, eyes spoke a universal language, and we all got on so well that in
ten minutes we might have known each other for ten years.

By the end of those minutes we were asked to the O'Donnel's sitting-room,
which had been furbished up out of a bedroom; and there Dick brought the
famous letter of introduction and the white paper parcel tied with pink
ribbon.

My name had not been mentioned by Angele. I was merely a "friend of Mr.
Waring's"; and, it seemed, I had been designated vaguely thus in a
previous letter in which our arrival had been prophesied. This had been
Angele's way of leaving it open for me to introduce myself as I pleased;
but now there was no secret with which I would not have felt safe in
trusting our old friends the O'Donnels, so I gave them my real name.

The Cherub's face lit up. "I knew your father well," said he. "We learned
soldiering together as boys, though he was four or five years my senior,
and the hero of my youth. Our ideas"----he coughed in an instant's
embarrassment--"were different. This separated us. But I never forgot him.
He was a great man; and it's an event to meet his son. When I saw you
downstairs in the dining-room, it was like going back thirty years. Such a
young man as you are now, was your father when I had my last sight of him.
You are his living portrait."

We shook hands; and I believe, with the slightest encouragement, the dear
old fellow would have planted a kiss on each of my cheeks. That he did
not, was a tribute to my English education.

The next thing was, that at Dick's request I was telling them everything;
and as Pilar listened to the story which prefaced my errand in Spain, her
eyes, which had been stars, became suns. When I spoke Carmona's name, she
and her father uttered an exclamation.

"El Duque de Carmona!" echoed the Cherub.

"He!" cried Pilar. And they looked at each other.

For a single second, I asked myself if my frankness had been a mistake.

"You know the Duke?" I asked.

"Santa Maria, but do we know him!" breathed the girl. "I wish we could
tell you no."

"You don't like him?"

"Do we like the Duke, Papa?"

The good Cherub shook his head portentously. "The Duke of Carmona is a bad
man," he said. "He has not done _us_ any harm--".

"Oh--oh!" Pilar cut him short. "He h