oddly furnished. Instead of a bedstead, a handsome hammock,
with blankets, sheets, and a pillow in it, hung at one side, and the
high window was provided with mosquito nettings. There was no carpet on
the floor, but this was clean, and a good enough dressing-bureau stood
at the further end of the room. Before the mirror of this, the senor set
down the lamp he had been carrying, and said to Ned:

"My dear Carfora, I have explained to the haughty senora that you are
the son of an American merchant, and of a good family, so that she will
not really treat you like a common person. She is descended from the
oldest families of Spain, and there is no republicanism in her. The
sooner you are ready, the better. I will be back in five minutes."

Open came the bag, but the best Ned could do in the way of style was a
very neat blue suit. What he would have called the swallow-tails, which
Senora Tassara might have expected as the dinner dress of a more
important guest, could hardly be required of a young fellow just escaped
from a norther. As soon as he felt that he had done his best, he turned
toward the door, but it opened to let in Senor Zuroaga in full
regulation dinner costume. How he could have put it on so quickly
puzzled Ned, but he asked no questions. It was quite possible, however,
that even the descendant of Cortes and the Montezumas was a little bit
in awe of the matronly descendant of the ancient Spanish grandees. She
might be a powerful personage in more ways than one. At all events, Ned
was led out to the central hall and across it, to where an uncommonly
wide door stood open, letting out a flood of illumination.

"Walk in, senors," said Colonel Tassara, from just inside this portal,
and the next moment Ned was altogether astonished.

He had been impressed, on reaching this house, that it was an old and
even dingy affair, of no considerable size, but he did not yet know that
the older Spanish mansions were often built with only one story and
around a central courtyard. Moreover, at least in Mexico, they were apt
to show few windows in front, and to be well calculated for use as a
kind of small forts, if revolutionary or similar occasions should ask
for thick walls, with embrasures for musketry. One glance around Senora
Tassara's dining-room was enough to work a revolution in Ned's ideas
relating to that establishment. It was large, high-ceilinged, and its
carpetless floor was of polished mahogany. The walls and ceil