ever chattering about things
of which they knew nothing. She liked her mother.

Now for Mexican Town and the Kohlers! She meant to run in on the old
woman without warning, and hug her.

X

SPANISH JOHNNY had no shop of his own, but he kept a table and an
order-book in one corner of the drug store where paints and wall-paper
were sold, and he was sometimes to be found there for an hour or so
about noon. Thea had gone into the drug store to have a friendly chat
with the proprietor, who used to lend her books from his shelves. She
found Johnny there, trimming rolls of wall-paper for the parlor of
Banker Smith's new house. She sat down on the top of his table and
watched him.

"Johnny," she said suddenly, "I want you to write down the words of that
Mexican serenade you used to sing; you know, 'ROSA DE NOCHE.' It's an
unusual song. I'm going to study it. I know enough Spanish for that."

Johnny looked up from his roller with his bright, affable smile. "SI,
but it is low for you, I think; VOZ CONTRALTO. It is low for me."

"Nonsense. I can do more with my low voice than I used to. I'll show
you. Sit down and write it out for me, please." Thea beckoned him with
the short yellow pencil tied to his order-book.

Johnny ran his fingers through his curly black hair. "If you wish. I do
not know if that SERENATA all right for young ladies. Down there it is
more for married ladies. They sing it for husbands--or somebody else,
may-bee." Johnny's eyes twinkled and he apologized gracefully with his
shoulders. He sat down at the table, and while Thea looked over his arm,
began to write the song down in a long, slanting script, with highly
ornamental capitals. Presently he looked up. "This-a song not exactly
Mexican," he said thoughtfully. "It come from farther down; Brazil,
Venezuela, may-bee. I learn it from some fellow down there, and he learn
it from another fellow. It is-a most like Mexican, but not quite." Thea
did not release him, but pointed to the paper. There were three verses
of the song in all, and when Johnny had written them down, he sat
looking at them meditatively, his head on one side. "I don' think for a
high voice, SENORITA," he objected with polite persistence. "How you
accompany with piano?"

"Oh, that will be easy enough."

"For you, may-bee!" Johnny smiled and drummed on the table with the tips
of his agile brown fingers. "You know something? Listen, I tell you." He
rose and sat down on the table bes