stayed. It is not very amusing to go about all by oneself, and she will
be very sorry also."

Then, as I was getting up to go, she exclaimed:

"But would you not like Carlotta to go with you? She knows all the
walks very well. She is my second daughter, Sir."

No doubt she took my look of surprise for consent, for she opened the
inner door and called out up the dark stairs which I could not see:

"Carlotta! Carlotta! make haste down, my dear child."

I tried to protest, but she would not listen.

"No; she will be very glad to go with you; she is very nice, and much
more cheerful than her sister, and she is a good girl, a very good girl,
whom I love very much."

In a few moments, a tall, slender, dark girl appeared, with her hair
hanging down, and whose youthful figure showed unmistakably beneath an
old dress of her mother's.

The latter at once told her how matters stood.

"This is Francesca's Frenchman, you know, the one whom she knew last
year. He is quite alone, and has come to look for her, poor fellow; so I
told him that you would go with him to keep him company."

The girl looked at me with her handsome dark eyes, and said, smiling:

"I have no objection, if he wishes it."

I could not possibly refuse, and merely said:

"Of course I shall be very glad of your company."

Her mother pushed her out. "Go and get dressed directly; put on your
blue dress and your hat with the flowers, and make haste."

As soon as she had left the room the old woman explained herself: "I
have two others, but they are much younger. It costs a lot of money to
bring up four children. Luckily the eldest is off my hands at present."

Then she told all about herself, about her husband, who had been an
employe on the railway, but who was dead, and she expatiated on the good
qualities of Carlotta, her second girl, who soon returned, dressed, as
her sister had been, in a striking, peculiar manner.

Her mother examined her from head to foot, and, after finding everything
right, she said:

"Now, my children, you can go." Then turning to the girl, she said: "Be
sure you are back by ten o'clock to-night; you know the door is locked
then." The answer was:

"All right, mamma; don't alarm yourself."

She took my arm, and we went wandering about the streets, just as I had
done the previous year with her sister.

We returned to the hotel for lunch, and then I took my new friend to
Santa Margarita, just as I had done with her siste