zled, then piqued, then himself madly
fascinated. He wrote fervid letters, he begged for interviews, he
haunted each one of Mrs. Cole's "teas." And, at last, he wrung from Jane
a confession of her love, her promise to marry him. And that very week
Miss Donaldson, the head of the school, discovered and read a package of
the Senor's letters to her pupil.

Captain Zelotes happened to be at home from a voyage. Being summoned
from South Harniss, he came to Boston and heard the tale from Miss
Donaldson's agitated lips. Jane was his joy, his pride; her future was
the great hope and dream of his life. WHEN she married--which was not
to be thought of for an indefinite number of years to come--she would of
course marry a--well, not a President of the United States, perhaps--but
an admiral possibly, or a millionaire, or the owner of a fleet of
steamships, or something like that. The idea that she should even
think of marrying a play-actor was unbelievable. The captain had never
attended the performance of an opera; what was more, he never expected
to attend one. He had been given to understand that a "parcel of
play-actin' men and women hollered and screamed to music for a couple
of hours." Olive, his wife, had attended an opera once and, according
to her, it was more like a cat fight than anything else. Nobody but
foreigners ever had anything to do with operas. And for foreigners of
all kinds--but the Latin variety of foreigner in particular--Captain
Zelotes Snow cherished a detest which was almost fanatic.

And now his daughter, his own Janie, was receiving ardent love
letters from a play-acting foreigner, a Spaniard, a "Portygee," a
"macaroni-eater"! When finally convinced that it was true, that the
letters had really been written to Jane, which took some time, he
demanded first of all to be shown the "Portygee." Miss Donaldson could
not, of course, produce the latter forthwith, but she directed her irate
visitor to the theater where the opera company was then performing. To
the theater Captain Zelotes went. He did not find Speranza there, but
from a frightened attendant he browbeat the information that the singer
was staying at a certain hotel. So the captain went to the hotel. It was
eleven o'clock in the morning, Senor Speranza was in bed and could not
be disturbed. Couldn't, eh? By the great and everlasting et cetera and
continued he was going to be disturbed then and there. And unless some
of the hotel's "hired help" set