he party in
the hope of again seeing the Princess of China, an interchange of
civilities, of gallantries, and even of confidences, at last took
place. Jovita Castro had heard (who had not?) of the wonders of
Aladdin's Palace, and was it of actual truth that the ladies had a
bouquet and a fan to match their dress presented to them every morning,
and that the gentlemen had a champagne cocktail sent to their rooms
before breakfast? "Just you come, Miss, and bring your father and your
brothers, and stay a week and you'll see," responded Aladdin,
gallantly. "Hold on! What's your father's first name? I'll send a
team over there for you to-morrow." "And is it true that you
frightened the handsome Captain Carroll away from Amita?" said Dolores
Briones, over the edge of her fan to Raymond. "Perfectly," said
Raymond, with ingenuous frankness. "I made it a matter of life or
death. He was a soldier, and naturally preferred the former as giving
him a better chance for promotion." "Ah! we thought it was Maruja you
liked best." "That was two years ago," said Raymond, gravely. "And
you Americanos can change in that time?" "I have just experienced that
it can be done in less," he responded, over the fan, with bewildering
significance. Nor were these confidences confined to only one
nationality. "I always thought you Spanish gentlemen were very dark,
and wore long mustaches and a cloak," said pretty little Miss Walker,
gazing frankly into the smooth round face of the eldest Pacheco--"why,
you are as fair as I am," "Eaf I tink that, I am for ever mizzarable,"
he replied, with grave melancholy. In the dead silence that followed
he was enabled to make his decorous point. "Because I shall not ezcape
ze fate of Narcissus." Mr. Buchanan, with the unrestrained and
irresponsible enjoyment of a traveler, entered fully into the spirit of
the scene. He even found words of praise for Aladdin, whose
extravagance had at first seemed to him almost impious. "Eh, but I'm
not prepared to say he is a fool, either," he remarked to his friend
the San Francisco banker. "Those who try to pick him up for one,"
returned the banker, "will find themselves mistaken. His is the
prodigality that loosens others' purse-strings besides his own,
Everybody contents himself with criticising his way of spending money,
but is ready to follow his way of making it."

The dinner was more formal, and when the mistress of the house, massive
in black silk, v