er. Passionately assuring
her that she was the most favored daughter of the Virgin, that her eyes
were like votive tapers, and yet in the same breath accusing her of
being a "brigand" and "assassin" in her attitude toward "his heart," he
balanced with quivering timidity toward her, threw an imaginary cloak
in front of her neat boots as a carpet for her to tread on, and with a
final astonishing pirouette and a languishing twang of his guitar, sank
on one knee, and blew, with a rose, a kiss at her feet.

If I had been seriously angry with him before for his grotesque
extravagance, I could have pitied him now for the young girl's absolute
unconsciousness of anything but his utter ludicrousness. The applause
of dancers and bystanders was instantaneous and hearty; her only
contribution to it was a slight parting of her thin red lips in a
half-incredulous smile. In the silence that followed the applause, as
Enriquez walked pantingly away, I heard her saying, half to herself,
"Certainly a most extraordinary creature!" In my indignation I could not
help turning suddenly upon her and looking straight into her eyes. They
were brown, with that peculiar velvet opacity common to the pupils of
nearsighted persons, and seemed to defy internal scrutiny. She only
repeated carelessly, "Isn't he?" and added: "Please see if you can find
Jocasta. I suppose we ought to be going now; and I dare say he won't be
doing it again. Ah! there she is. Good gracious, child! what have you
got there?"

It was Enriquez' rose which Jocasta had picked up, and was timidly
holding out toward her mistress.

"Heavens! I don't want it. Keep it yourself."

I walked with them to the door, as I did not fancy a certain glitter in
the black eyes of the Senoritas Manuela and Pepita, who were watching
her curiously. But I think she was as oblivious of this as she was of
Enriquez' particular attentions. As we reached the street I felt that I
ought to say something more.

"You know," I began casually, "that although those poor people meet here
in this public way, their gathering is really quite a homely pastoral
and a national custom; and these girls are all honest, hardworking peons
or servants enjoying themselves in quite the old idyllic fashion."

"Certainly," said the young girl, half-abstractedly. "Of course it's
a Moorish dance, originally brought over, I suppose, by those old
Andalusian immigrants two hundred years ago. It's quite Arabic in its
suggestions