less
serious in their anxiety to welcome the coming guests they would have
found themselves very amusing--as when Langham would lean over the
balcony in the court and shout back into the kitchen, in what was
supposed to be an imitation of his sister's manner, "Bring my coffee
and rolls--and don't take all day about it either," while Clay and
MacWilliams stood anxiously below to head off the servants when they
carried in a can of hot water instead of bringing the horses round to
the door, as they had been told to do.

"Of course it's a bit rough and all that," Clay would say, "but they
have only to tell us what they want changed and we can have it ready
for them in an hour."

"Oh, my sisters are all right," Langham would reassure him; "they'll
think it's fine. It will be like camping-out to them, or a picnic.
They'll understand."

But to make sure, and to "test his girders," as Clay put it, they gave
a dinner, and after that a breakfast. The President came to the first,
with his wife, the Countess Manuelata, Madame la Presidenta, and
Captain Stuart, late of the Gordon Highlanders, and now in command of
the household troops at the Government House and of the body-guard of
the President. He was a friend of Clay's and popular with every one
present, except for the fact that he occupied this position, instead of
serving his own Government in his own army. Some people said he had
been crossed in love, others, less sentimental, that he had forged a
check, or mixed up the mess accounts of his company. But Clay and
MacWilliams said it concerned no one why he was there, and then
emphasized the remark by picking a quarrel with a man who had given an
unpleasant reason for it. Stuart, so far as they were concerned, could
do no wrong.

The dinner went off very well, and the President consented to dine with
them in a week, on the invitation of young Langham to meet his father.

"Miss Langham is very beautiful, they tell me," Madame Alvarez said to
Clay. "I heard of her one winter in Rome; she was presented there and
much admired."

"Yes, I believe she is considered very beautiful," Clay said. "I have
only just met her, but she has travelled a great deal and knows every
one who is of interest, and I think you will like her very much."

"I mean to like her," said the woman. "There are very few of the
native ladies who have seen much of the world beyond a trip to Paris,
where they live in their hotels and at the dressmak