herefore give him a cordial
welcome, for my sake, dear."

"I give you a thousand welcomes, Senor Jack," she exclaimed impulsively,
as she offered her hand, "and a thousand thanks for all that you have
done for my father and Carlos. I am delighted that you have been able
to come to us, for I seem to know you quite well; Carlos has talked so
often about you, and of what you used to do together in the old days at
Dulwich, that I feel it quite impossible to regard you as a stranger."

For perhaps the first time in his life Jack Singleton found himself at a
loss for words. As a rule he had plenty to say for himself, but now he
found himself suddenly dumb. He had heard his friend Carlos speak of
his sister Isolda with patronising, brotherly affection as "a good
child", "a nice little thing", "not half a bad sort", and so on, and he
seemed to remember that only a day or two ago Carlos had casually
mentioned that his sister was just sixteen years of age; he had
therefore pictured the girl to himself as a hoyden, in the transition
stage of frocks that are neither short nor long, but betwixt and
between, a girl with hair flying loose about her shoulders--in short, a
girl. And now, all unprepared, he found himself grasping the hand of a
glorious creature of absolutely dazzling loveliness, with the face,
form, and manners of an irresistibly fascinating woman, who, despite her
sixteen years of age, looked as though she might be quite twenty. He
stammered out a few halting and stumbling words of thanks for her kindly
welcome of him, feeling all the time that he would have liked to kick
himself for his stupid gaucherie; and then turned to receive the
greeting of Senora Montijo. This lady was simply an older edition of
her lovely daughter, with a more composed and stately manner, and her
welcome to Jack was cordiality itself; and presently they all turned and
made their way into the house, which they entered by way of a wide
doorway furnished with two leaves, now thrown wide open, the upper
panels of which were fitted with Venetian lattices for the admission of
air and the exclusion of the too-ardent beams of the sun. This doorway
gave entrance to a large, marble-paved hall extending the entire depth
of the house from front to back, as was to be seen from the fact that
another door, opposite that by which the party had just entered, stood
wide open, through which could be seen another broad veranda running
along the back of the