a better view of
it. Its flowers consisted chiefly of roses of different varieties and
colors. The air was spicy with their perfume and, as he inhaled their
fragrance in deep breaths, his attention was presently attracted by the
figure of Chiquita who appeared in the pathway before him, pausing
beside a luxuriant bush of blood-red blossoms and apparently quite
unconscious of his presence. The picture which she presented was one he
carried with him for many a day afterward.

[Illustration: "The picture which she presented was one he carried with
him for many a day."]

A small white dove strutted and cooed on the ground before her, while
another flew down from the house-top and after circling above her head,
also settled down beside its mate in the pathway.

She was dressed in a short pale green skirt and bodice, the latter cut
low at the neck before and behind. The sleeves were short, reaching to
the elbow and terminating in a narrow frill of deep saffron, their sides
open and interlaced with silvery cords. Two richly embroidered silken
shawls of a pale red color with long fringe and worn in Spanish style,
adorned her dress. The one, pinned at the waist at the back and
following the outline of the bodice, passed up over her left shoulder
and down in front to her breast where it was fastened with a golden
brooch, the end falling in a graceful length of fringe. The other, also
fastened at the back of her waist, passed around her right hip and
diagonally down across the front of her skirt. Golden poppies adorned
the heavy masses of her lustrous black hair, worn high and held in place
by a silver comb. A saffron lace mantilla of the same deep shade as that
of the frill on her sleeves, fell in graceful folds from the comb to her
shoulders, while her feet were clothed in silk stockings of the same
shade and soft brown beaded slippers of undressed leather.

To complete this costume which only a Gypsy or one of Chiquita's tawny
complexion would have dared essay to wear, a small pale red silken fan
ornamented with gold and silver spangles, hung suspended from her wrist
by a satin ribbon of deep orange which flashed in the sunlight like a
splash of gold on a humming-bird's throat.

It was not by some happy chance that the Captain found her arrayed in
such finery, as is so often the case with heroines of romance, but the
result of much premeditation and studied effect. Ever since her meeting
with Blanch she had dressed hersel