how you got him to 'duena' Euriqueta
with the Colonel Brown; how you let him frighten the young Englishman
who was too attentive to Dorotea; how you set him even upon poor
Raymond, and failed so dismally that I had to take him myself in hand."

"But if I choose to charge him with explanations that I can not make
myself without derogating from the time-honored hospitality of the
casa, that is another thing. It is not," said Dona Maria, with a
certain massive dignity, that, inconsistent as it was with the weakness
of her argument, was not without impressiveness, "it is not yet,
Blessed Santa Maria, that we are obliged to take notice ourself of the
pretensions of every guest beneath our roof like the match-making,
daughter-selling English and Americans. And THEN Pereo had tact and
discrimination. Now he is mad! There are strangers and strangers.
The whole valley is full of them--one can discriminate, since the old
families year by year are growing less."

"Surely not," said Maruja, innocently. "There is the excellent
Ramierrez, who has lately almost taken him a wife from the singing-hall
in San Francisco; he may yet be snatched from the fire. There is the
youthful Jose Castro, the sole padrono of our national bull-fight at
Soquel, the famous horse-breaker, and the winner of I know not how many
races. And have we not Vincente Peralta, who will run, it is said, for
the American Congress. He can read and write--truly I have a letter
from him here." She turned back the folded slip of Captain Carroll's
note and discovered another below.

Mrs. Saltonstall tapped her daughter's hand with her fan. "You jest at
them, yet you uphold Pereo! Go, now, and sleep yourself into a better
frame of mind. Stop! I hear the Doctor's horse. Run and see that
Pereo receives him properly."

Maruja had barely entered the dark corridor when she came upon the
visitor,--a gray, hard-featured man of sixty,--who had evidently
entered without ceremony. "I see you did not wait to be announced,"
she said, sweetly. "My mother will be flattered by your impatience.
You will find her in the patio."

"Pereo did not announce me, as he was probably still under the effect
of the aguardiente he swallowed yesterday," said the Doctor, dryly. "I
met him outside the tienda on the highway the other night, talking to a
pair of cut-throats that I would shoot on sight."

"The mayordomo has many purchases to make, and must meet a great many
people," s