his. The boys played rough jokes and thought it smart to be clumsy and
to run into each other on the floor. For the square dances there was
always the bawling voice of the caller, who was also the county
auctioneer.

This Mexican dance was soft and quiet. There was no calling, the
conversation was very low, the rhythm of the music was smooth and
engaging, the men were graceful and courteous. Some of them Thea had
never before seen out of their working clothes, smeared with grease from
the round-house or clay from the brickyard. Sometimes, when the music
happened to be a popular Mexican waltz song, the dancers sang it softly
as they moved. There were three little girls under twelve, in their
first communion dresses, and one of them had an orange marigold in her
black hair, just over her ear. They danced with the men and with each
other. There was an atmosphere of ease and friendly pleasure in the low,
dimly lit room, and Thea could not help wondering whether the Mexicans
had no jealousies or neighborly grudges as the people in Moonstone had.
There was no constraint of any kind there to-night, but a kind of
natural harmony about their movements, their greetings, their low
conversation, their smiles.

Ramas brought up his two young cousins, Silvo and Felipe, and presented
them. They were handsome, smiling youths, of eighteen and twenty, with
pale-gold skins, smooth cheeks, aquiline features, and wavy black hair,
like Johnny's. They were dressed alike, in black velvet jackets and soft
silk shirts, with opal shirt-buttons and flowing black ties looped
through gold rings. They had charming manners, and low, guitar-like
voices. They knew almost no English, but a Mexican boy can pay a great
many compliments with a very limited vocabulary. The Ramas boys thought
Thea dazzlingly beautiful. They had never seen a Scandinavian girl
before, and her hair and fair skin bewitched them. "BLANCO Y ORO,
SEMEJANTE LA PASCUA!" (White and gold, like Easter!) they exclaimed to
each other. Silvo, the younger, declared that he could never go on to
Utah; that he and his double bass had reached their ultimate
destination. The elder was more crafty; he asked Miguel Ramas whether
there would be "plenty more girls like that _A_ Salt Lake, maybee?"

Silvo, overhearing, gave his brother a contemptuous glance. "Plenty more
A PARAISO may-bee!" he retorted. When they were not dancing with her,
their eyes followed her, over the coiffures of their other p