nora Valdez's reception, she had
astonished every one by the adorable grace of her dancing, and the
captivating way in which she used her fan. Her fingers touched the
guitar as if they had played it for a thousand years. She sang a Spanish
Romancero of El mio Cid with all the fire and tenderness of a Castilian
maid.

Her father watched her with troubled eyes. He almost felt as if he had
no part in her. And the thought gave him an unusual anxiety, for he
knew this night that the days were fast approaching which would test to
extremity the affection which bound his family together. He contrived to
draw Antonia aside for a few moments.

"Is she not wonderful?" he asked. "When did she learn these things? I
mean the way in which she does them?"

Isabel was dancing La Cachoucha, and Antonia looked at her little sister
with eyes full of loving speculation. Her answer dropped slowly from her
lips, as if a conviction was reluctantly expressed:

"The way must be a gift from the past--her soul has been at school
before she was born here. Father, are you troubled? What is it? Not
Isabel, surely?"

"Not Isabel, primarily. Antonia, I have been expecting something for
twenty years. It is coming."

"And you are sorry?"

"I am anxious, that is all. Go back to the dancers. In the morning we
can talk."

In the morning the doctor was called very early by some one needing his
skill. Antonia heard the swift footsteps and eager voices, and watched
him mount the horse always kept ready saddled for such emergencies, and
ride away with the messenger. The incident in itself was a usual
one, but she was conscious that her soul was moving uneasily and
questioningly in some new and uncertain atmosphere.

She had felt it on her first entrance into Senora Valdez's gran sala--a
something irrepressible in the faces of all the men present. She
remembered that even the servants had been excited, and that they
stood in small groups, talking with suppressed passion and with much
demonstrativeness. And the officers from the Alamo! How conscious they
had been of their own importance! What airs of condescension and of an
almost insufferable protection they had assumed! Now, that she recalled
the faces of Judge Valdez, and other men of years and position, she
understood that there had been in them something out of tone with the
occasion. In the atmosphere of the festa she had only felt it. In the
solitude of her room she could apprehend its nature.