itants,--and belonged also to Ramierez.

Ramierez himself--round-whiskered and Sancho Panza-like in
build--welcomed the editor with fat, perfunctory urbanity. The fonda and
all it contained was at his disposicion.

The senora coquettishly bewailed, in rising and falling inflections, his
long absence, his infidelity and general perfidiousness. Truly he was
growing great in writing of the affairs of his nation--he could no
longer see his humble friends! Yet not long ago--truly that very
week--there was the head impresor of Don Pancho's imprenta himself who
had been there!

A great man, of a certainty, and they must take what they could get!
They were only poor innkeepers; when the governor came not they must
welcome the alcalde. To which the editor--otherwise Don Pancho--replied
with equal effusion. He had indeed recommended the fonda to his
impresor, who was but a courier before him. But what was this? The
impresor had been ravished at the sight of a beautiful girl--a mere
muchacha--yet of a beauty that deprived the senses--this angel--clearly
the daughter of his friend! Here was the old miracle of the orange in
full fruition and the lovely fragrant blossom all on the same tree--at
the fonda. And this had been kept from him!

"Yes, it was but a thing of yesterday," said the senora, obviously
pleased. "The muchacha--for she was but that--had just returned from the
convent at San Jose, where she had been for four years. Ah! what would
you? The fonda was no place for the child, who should know only the
litany of the Virgin--and they had kept her there. And now--that she
was home again--she cared only for the horse. From morning to night!
Caballeros might come and go! There might be a festival--all the same to
her, it made nothing if she had the horse to ride! Even now she was with
one in the fields. Would Don Pancho attend and see Cota and her horse?"

The editor smilingly assented, and accompanied his hostess along the
corridor to a few steps which brought them to the level of the open
meadows of the old farm inclosure. A slight white figure on horseback
was careering in the distance. At a signal from Senora Ramierez it
wheeled and came down rapidly towards them. But when within a hundred
yards the horse was suddenly pulled up vaquero fashion, and the little
figure leaped off and advanced toward them on foot, leading the horse.

To his surprise, Mr. Grey saw that she had been riding bareback, and
from her discreet ha