uld have smoothed her ruffled
spirit and taken the edge off her tongue, the sharpest in Santa Fe.

It was not easy for the inveterate coquette and one time reigning belle
to resign the position she had held so long and undisputed, especially
to an alien--one whom the full blooded Spaniard inwardly despises,
regards as of an inferior race.

How she hated the dark woman, envied the glances and flatteries and
attentions which she always received wherever she went. It was said,
that on Chiquita's return from school, Senora Fernandez suddenly grew
cold and haughty toward the world, but finding that a proud exterior
availed her little, she sulked and pouted for a time like a spoiled
child, only to warm again to the world which she loved so passionately,
which she felt slipping from her and without whose adulation she could
not live.

_Dios de mi vida!_ but it was terrible to grow old! Not since the death
of her husband, Don Carlos, had she endured so bitter a pang. The fact
that she had never had any children accounted perhaps for a certain
harshness in her nature.

It was a busy day for the Senora. Besides the care of her guests, the
preparing of freshly killed fowl and baking of cakes and _tortillas_,
there was the garden which must be hung with lanterns where there would
be the usual dancing and merrymaking during the evening. All this and
much more the Senora must superintend, but she was equal to the task.

As she issued her orders to the retinue of servants that came and went,
she carried on a lively, though interrupted, conversation with her
sister, Senora Rosario Sanchez, and her niece, Dolores, who had come to
assist her in the preparations.

"It has come at last--I always said it would--I never trusted that
double nature of hers!" she exclaimed triumphantly, pausing for an
instant in her work of assorting the linen. The expression and gesture
of Senora Sanchez plainly bespoke the shock she also had experienced.

"To think of it," she gasped. "How Padre Antonio can overlook such a
breach of confidence and offense to the Church is more than I can
understand!"

"Ah! that shows the extent of her influence over him," answered Senora.
"She has bewitched him with her wild ways--he simply dotes on her!"

"It's scandalous!" broke in her sister.

"To my mind, it shows signs of the Padre's failing," rejoined the Senora
sharply.

"It does indeed--poor man!" sighed her sister. "And what's more--it
never did seem pr