ides that, among hidalgos de casa
Solar" (gentlemen of known property)--

"Well, then, you have servants, Maria, my dear one."

"Servants! Bah! Of what use are they, Roberto, since they also have got
hold of American ideas?"

"Isabel and Antonia will be here."

"Let me only enumerate to you, Roberto. Thomas and his wife and four
children arrived last night. You may at this moment hear the little
Maria crying. I dare say Pepita is washing the child, and using soap
which is very disagreeable. I have always admired the wife of Thomas,
but I think she is too fond of her own way with the children. I give her
advices which she does not take."

"They are her own children, dearest."

"Holy Maria! They are also my own grandchildren."

"Well, well, we must remember that Abbie is a little Puritan. She
believes in bringing up children strictly, and it is good; for Thomas
would spoil them. As for Isabel's boys--"

"God be blessed! Isabel's boys are entirely charming. They have been
corrected at my own knee. There are not more beautifully behaved boys in
the christened world."

"And Antonia's little Christina?"

"She is already an angel. Ah, Roberto! If I had only died when I was as
innocent as that dear one!"

"I am thankful you did not die, Maria. How dark my life would have been
without you!"

"Beloved, then I am glad I am not in the kingdom of heaven; though, if
one dies like Christina, one escapes purgatory. Roberto, when I rise I
am very stiff: I think, indeed, I have some rheumatism."

"That is not unlikely; and also Maria, you have now some years."

"Let that be confessed; but the good God knows that I lost all my youth
in that awful flight of 'thirty-six."

"Maria, we all left or lost something on that dark journey. To-day, we
shall recover its full value."

"To be sure--that is what is said--we shall see. Will you now send
Dolores to me? I must arrange my toilet with some haste; and tell me,
Roberto, what dress is your preference; it is your eyes, beloved, I wish
to please."

Robert Worth was not too old to feel charmed and touched by the
compliment. And he was not a thoughtless or churlish husband; he knew
how to repay such a wifely compliment, and it was a pleasant sight to
see the aged companions standing hand in hand before the handsome suits
which Dolores had spread out for her mistress to examine.

He looked at the purple and the black and the white robes, and then
he looked at the face beside