Aunt Viney caught her wrist. "Where have you been?" she asked quickly.

"In the house," stammered Cecily, with a frightened face.

"You have not been in the garden with d.i.c.k?" continued Aunt Viney sharply--yet with a hopeless sense of the impossibility of the suggestion.

"No, I was not even going there. I thought of just strolling down the lane."

The girl's accents were truthful; more than that, she absolutely looked relieved by her aunt's question. "Do you want me, Aunty?" she added quickly.

"Yes--no. Run away, then--but don't go far."

At any other time Aunt Viney might have wondered at the eagerness with which Cecily tripped away; now she was only anxious to get rid of her.

She entered the casa hurriedly.

"Send Josefa to me at once," she said to Manuel.

Josefa, the housekeeper,--a fat Mexican woman,--appeared. "Send Concha and the other maids here." They appeared, mutely wondering. Aunt Viney glanced hurriedly over them--they were all there--a few comely, but not too attractive, and all stupidly complacent. "Have you girls any friends here this evening--or are you expecting any?" she demanded. Of a surety, no!--as the padrona knew--it was not night for church. "Very well,"

returned Aunt Viney; "I thought I heard your voices in the garden; understand, I want no gallivanting there. Go to bed."

She was relieved! d.i.c.k certainly was not guilty of a low intrigue with one of the maids. But who and what was she?

d.i.c.k was absent again from chocolate; there was unfinished work to do.

Cecily came in later, just as Aunt Viney was beginning to be anxious.

Had she appeared distressed or piqued by her cousin's conduct, Aunt Viney might have spoken; but there was a pretty color on her cheek--the result, she said, of her rapid walking, and the fresh air; did Aunt Viney know that a cool breeze had just risen?--and her delicate lips were wreathed at times in a faint retrospective smile. Aunt Viney stared; certainly the girl was not pining! What young people were made of now-a-days she really couldn't conceive. She shrugged her shoulders and resumed her tatting.

Nevertheless, as d.i.c.k's unfinished studies seemed to have whitened his cheek and impaired his appet.i.te the next morning, she announced her intention of driving out towards the mission alone. When she returned at luncheon she further astonished the young people by casually informing them they would have Spanish visitors to dinner--namely, their neighbors, Donna Maria Amador and the Dona Felipa Peralta.

Both faces were turned eagerly towards her; both said almost in the same breath, "But, Aunt Viney! you don't know them! However did you--What does it all mean?"

"My dears," said Aunt Viney placidly, "Mrs. Amador and I have always nodded to each other, and I knew they were only waiting for the slightest encouragement. I gave it, and they're coming."

It was difficult to say whether Cecily's or d.i.c.k's face betrayed the greater delight and animation. Aunt Viney looked from the one to the other. It seemed as if her attempt at diversion had been successful.

"Tell us all about it, you dear, clever, artful Aunty!" said Cecily gayly.

"There's nothing whatever to tell, my love! It seems, however, that the young one, Dona Felipa, has seen d.i.c.k, and remembers him." She shot a keen glance at d.i.c.k, but was obliged to admit that the rascal's face remained unchanged. "And I wanted to bring a cavalier for YOU, dear, but Don Jose's nephew isn't at home now." Yet here, to her surprise, Cecily was faintly blushing.

Early in the afternoon the piebald horses and dark brown chariot of the Amadors drew up before the gateway. The young people were delighted with Dona Felipa, and thought her blue eyes and tawny hair gave an added piquancy to her colorless satin skin and otherwise distinctively Spanish face and figure. Aunt Viney, who entertained Donna Maria, was nevertheless watchful of the others; but failed to detect in d.i.c.k's effusive greeting, or the Dona's coquettish smile of recognition, any suggestion of previous confidences. It was rather to Cecily that Dona Felipa seemed to be characteristically exuberant and childishly feminine. Both mother and stepdaughter spoke a musical infantine English, which the daughter supplemented with her eyes, her eyebrows, her little brown fingers, her plump shoulders, a dozen charming intonations of voice, and a complete vocabulary in her active and emphatic fan.

The young lady went over the house with Cecily curiously, as if recalling some old memories. "Ah, yes, I remember it--but it was long ago and I was very leetle--you comprehend, and I have not arrive mooch when the old Don was alone. It was too--too--what you call melank-oaly.

And the old man have not make mooch to himself of company."

"Then there were no young people in the house, I suppose?" said Cecily, smiling.

"No--not since the old man's father lif. Then there were TWO. It is a good number, this two, eh?" She gave a single gesture, which took in, with Cecily, the distant d.i.c.k, and with a whole volume of suggestion in her shoulders, and twirling fan, continued: "Ah! two sometime make one--is it not? But not THEN in the old time--ah, no! It is a sad story.

I shall tell it to you some time, but not to HIM."

But Cecily's face betrayed no undue bashful consciousness, and she only asked, with a quiet smile, "Why not to--to my cousin?"

"Imbecile!" responded that lively young lady.

After dinner the young people proposed to take Dona Felipa into the rose garden, while Aunt Viney entertained Donna Maria on the veranda. The young girl threw up her hands with an affectation of horror. "Santa Maria!--in the rose garden? After the Angelus, you and him? Have you not heard?"

But here Donna Maria interposed. Ah! Santa Maria! What was all that!

Was it not enough to talk old woman's gossip and tell vaqueros tales at home, without making uneasy the strangers? She would have none of it.

"Vamos!"

Nevertheless Dona Felipa overcame her horror of the rose garden at infelicitous hours, so far as to permit herself to be conducted by the cousins into it, and to be installed like a rose queen on the stone bench, while d.i.c.k and Cecily threw themselves in submissive and imploring att.i.tudes at her little feet. The young girl looked mischievously from one to the other.

"It ees very pret-ty, but all the same I am not a rose: I am what you call a big goose-berry! Eh--is it not?"

The cousins laughed, but without any embarra.s.sed consciousness. "Dona Felipa knows a sad story of this house," said Cecily; "but she will not tell it before you, d.i.c.k."

d.i.c.k, looking up at the coquettish little figure, with Heaven knows what OTHER memories in his mind, implored and protested.

"Ah! but this little story--she ees not so mooch sad of herself as she ees str-r-r-ange!" She gave an exaggerated little shiver under her lace shawl, and closed her eyes meditatively.

"Go on," said d.i.c.k, smiling in spite of his interested expectation.

Dona Felipa took her fan in both hands, spanning her knees, leaned forward, and after a preliminary compressing of her lips and knitting of her brows, said:--

"It was a long time ago. Don Gregorio he have his daughter Rosita here, and for her he will fill all thees rose garden and gif to her; for she like mooch to lif with the rose. She ees very pret-ty. You shall have seen her picture here in the casa. No? It have hang under the crucifix in the corner room, turn around to the wall--WHY, you shall comprehend when I have made finish thees story. Comes to them here one day Don Vincente, Don Gregorio's nephew, to lif when his father die. He was yong, a pollio--same as Rosita. They were mooch together; they have make lofe. What will you?--it ees always the same. The Don Gregorio have comprehend; the friends have all comprehend; in a year they will make marry. Dona Rosita she go to Monterey to see his family. There ees an English warship come there; and Rosita she ees very gay with the officers, and make the flirtation very mooch. Then Don Vincente he is onhappy, and he revenge himself to make lofe with another. When Rosita come back it is very miserable for them both, but they say nossing. The warship he have gone away; the other girl Vincente he go not to no more.

All the same, Rosita and Vincente are very triste, and the family will not know what to make. Then Rosita she is sick and eat nossing, and walk to herself all day in the rose garden, until she is as white and fade away as the rose. And Vincente he eat nossing, but drink mooch aguardiente. Then he have fever and go dead. And Rosita she have fainting and fits; and one day they have look for her in the rose garden, and she is not! And they poosh and poosh in the ground for her, and they find her with so mooch rose-leaves--so deep--on top of her. SHE has go dead. It is a very sad story, and when you hear it you are very, very mooch dissatisfied."

It is to be feared that the two Americans were not as thrilled by this sad recital as the fair narrator had expected, and even d.i.c.k ventured to point out that those sort of things happened also to his countrymen, and were not peculiar to the casa.

"But you said that there was a terrible sequel," suggested Cecily smilingly: "tell us THAT. Perhaps Mr. Bracy may receive it a little more politely."

An expression of superst.i.tious gravity, half real, half simulated, came over Dona Felipa's face, although her vivacity of gesticulation and emphasis did not relax. She cast a hurried glance around her, and leaned a little forward towards the cousins.

"When there are no more young people in the casa because they are dead,"

she continued, in a lower voice, "Don Gregorio he is very melank-oaly, and he have no more company for many years. Then there was a rodeo near the hacienda, and there came five or six caballeros to stay with him for the feast. Notabilimente comes then Don Jorge Martinez. He is a bad man--so weeked--a Don Juan for making lofe to the ladies. He lounge in the garden, he smoke his cigarette, he twist the moustache--so! One day he came in, and he laugh and wink so and say, 'Oh, the weeked, sly Don Gregorio! He have hid away in the casa a beautiful, pret-ty girl, and he will nossing say.' And the other caballeros say, 'Mira! what is this?

there is not so mooch as one young lady in the casa.' And Don Jorge he wink, and he say, 'Imbeciles! pigs!' And he walk in the garden and twist his moustache more than ever. And one day, behold! he walk into the casa, very white and angry, and he swear mooch to himself; and he orders his horse, and he ride away, and never come back no more, never-r-r!

And one day another caballero, Don Esteban Briones, he came in, and say, 'Hola! Don Jorge has forgotten his pret-ty girl: he have left her over on the garden bench. Truly I have seen.' And they say, 'We will too.'

And they go, and there is nossing. And they say, 'Imbecile and pig!' But he is not imbecile and pig; for he has seen, and Don Jorge has seen; and why? For it is not a girl, but what you call her--a ghost! And they will that Don Esteban should make a picture of her--a design; and he make one. And old Don Gregorio he say, 'madre de Dios! it is Rosita'--the same that hung under the crucifix in the big room."

"And is that all?" asked d.i.c.k, with a somewhat p.r.o.nounced laugh, but a face that looked quite white in the moonlight.

"No, it ees NOT all. For when Don Gregorio got himself more company another time--it ees all yonge ladies, and my aunt she is invite too; for she was yonge then, and she herself have tell to me this:--

"One night she is in the garden with the other girls, and when they want to go in the casa one have say, 'Where is Francisca Pacheco? Look, she came here with us, and now she is not.' Another one say, 'She have conceal herself to make us affright.' And my aunt she say, 'I will go seek that I shall find her.' And she go. And when she came to the pear-tree, she heard Francisca's voice, and it say to some one she see not, 'Fly! vamos! some one have come.' And then she come at the moment upon Francisca, very white and trembling, and--alone. And Francisca she have run away and say nossing, and shut herself in her room. And one of the other girls say: 'It is the handsome caballero with the little black moustache and sad white face that I have seen in the garden that make this. It is truly that he is some poor relation of Don Gregorio, or some mad kinsman that he will not we should know.' And my aunt ask Don Gregorio; for she is yonge. And he have say: 'What silly fool ees thees?

There is not one caballero here, but myself.' And when the other young girl have tell to him how the caballero look, he say: 'The saints save us! I cannot more say. It ees Don Vincente, who haf gone dead.' And he cross himself, and--But look! Madre de Dios! Mees Cecily, you are ill--you are affrighted. I am a gabbling fool! Help her, Don Ricardo; she is falling!"

But it was too late: Cecily had tried to rise to her feet, had staggered forward and fallen in a faint on the bench.

d.i.c.k did not remember how he helped to carry the insensible Cecily to the casa, nor what explanation he had given to the alarmed inmates of her sudden attack. He recalled vaguely that something had been said of the overpowering perfumes of the garden at that hour, that the lively Felipa had become half hysterical in her remorseful apologies, and that Aunt Viney had ended the scene by carrying Cecily into her own room, where she presently recovered a still trembling but reticent consciousness. But the fainting of his cousin and the presence of a real emergency had diverted his imagination from the vague terror that had taken possession of it, and for the moment enabled him to control himself. With a desperate effort he managed to keep up a show of hospitable civility to his Spanish friends until their early departure.