ice, saw right through Cousin Peligros
into the vacuum that lay behind her. She sat in state in the great
drawing-room with her hands folded on her lap and placidly arranged her
proposed mode of greeting the newcomers. She had been informed that
Sarrion had found it necessary to take Juanita de Mogente away from the
convent school and to assume the cares of that guardianship which had
always been an understood obligation mutually binding between himself
and Francisco de Mogente.

Cousin Peligros was therefore keenly alive to the fact, that Juanita
required at this critical moment of her life a good and abiding example.
Hers also was the blessed knowledge that no one in all Spain was better
fitted to offer such an example than the Senorita Peligros de Sarrion.

She therefore sat in her best black silk dress in an attitude subtly
combining, with a kind tolerance for all who were so unfortunate as not
to be Sarrions, a complacent determination to do her duty.

It is to be regretted that she was for a time left sitting thus, for
Perro was in the hall, and his greeting of Juanita had to be acknowledged
with several violent hugs, which resulted in Juanita's mantilla getting
mixed up with Perro's collar. Then there were the pictures and the armour
to be inspected on the stairs. For Juanita had never seen the palace with
its shutters open.

"Are they all Sarrions?" she exclaimed. "Oh mi alma! What a fierce
company. That old gentleman with a spike on top of his hat is a crusader
I suppose. And there is a helmet hanging on the wall beneath the
portrait, with a great dent in it. But I expect he hit him back again.
Don't you think so, Uncle Ramon, if he was a Sarrion?"

"I dare say he did," answered the Count.

"I wish I was a Sarrion," said Juanita, looking up at the armour with a
light in her eyes.

"You are one," replied Sarrion, gravely.

She stopped and glanced back over her shoulder at him. Marcos was some
way behind, and took no part in the conversation.

"So I am," she said. "I forgot."

And with a little sigh, as of a realised responsibility, she continued
her way up the wide stairs. The sight of Cousin Peligros, upright on a
chair, dispelled Juanita's momentary gravity, however.

"Oh, Cousin Peligros," she cried, running to her and taking both her
hands. "Just think! I have left school. No more punishments--no more
grammar--no more arithmetic!"

Cousin Peligros had risen and endeavoured to maintain that dign