m.

It was to be a great day for Aguilar! People from Santa Clara and
Hastings and Gulnare were arriving in all manner of equipages. Mexican
vehicles made a solid stockade along the west of the track. In the
upper benches of the pavilion were ranged the flower and chivalry of
the town--the families of the mine boss, the liveryman, the lawyer, the
schoolmaster and several visiting personages. Jane, in her gray gown,
was among them; beside her sat Lola, with Edith May Jonas.

"And did you think going away to school would make her different?"
inquired Ana of her brother. "What should it do to her, 'Andro? Make
her white like Miss Jonas? _Vaya!_ Lola is only a Mexican!"

"She is not ashamed to be one, either!" cried Alejandro, accepting
Ana's tacit imputation of some inferiority in their race. "And she is
white enough," he added, regarding Lola as she sat smiling and talking,
with the boughy eaves making little shadows across the rim of her
broad straw hat.

"Who said she was ashamed?" asked Ana, with suspicious suavity. "You
hear words that have not been spoken. I tell you of your faults,
_hermano mio_, because I love you!"

Alejandro turned off in a sulk, and, leaving Ana to her own resources,
went toward the place where the ponies and burros were tethered. It was
comparatively lonely here, and Alejandro began to make friends with a
disconsolate burro who was bewailing his fate in a series of lamentable
sounds.

"Ha, _bribon!_" he said, pinching the burro's ears. "What is the use of
wasting breath? _Sus, sus, amigo!_" The burro began to buck and
Alejandro stepped back. As he did so he saw approaching him from behind
the wagons a man in tattered garments, with a hat dragged over his
eyes, and a great mass of furzy yellow beard.

"Here, you!" said this person. "Oh, you're Mexican! _Ya lo veo_--"

[Illustration: "'I HOPED YOU'D BE ABLE TO LEND ME A HAND.'"]

"Me, I spik English all ri'!" retorted Alejandro, with dignity. "Spik
English if you want. I it onnerstan'."

"I see. Well, look here!" He withdrew a folded paper from his pocket.
"I want you to take this note over to that lady in the gray dress in
the pavilion. _Sabe_ 'pavilion'? All right! Don't let any one else see
it. Just hand it to her quietly and tell her the gentleman's waiting."

Alejandro took the note reluctantly. Why should he put himself at the
behest of this _vagabundo_ who impeached his English? The man, however,
had an eye on him. It was an e