"Poor dear Don Roberto!" exclaimed Mrs. Cartright. "I will get out this minute and speak to him. I know so many remedies for a cold,--blackberry brandy, or currant wine, or inhaling burnt linen and drinking hot water--" But she was halfway down the verandah by this time.

"Do you remember the last time we went to the hills?" asked Ila. "Helena and Rose shrieked with such hilarity that the horses bolted."

"I can answer for myself," said Rose. "I may say that the memory was burnt in with a slipper."

"I never was spanked," murmured Tiny. "That is one of the many things I am grateful for. It must be so humiliating to have been spanked."

"Who can tell what futures may lie in a slipper?" replied Rose, who had a reputation for being clever. "I am sure that my slipperings, for instance, generated a tendency for epigram; something swift and sharp.

It destroyed the tendency to bawl continuously,--the equivalent of the great national habit of monologue."

"Rose, you are quite too frightfully clever," said Tiny, with an a.s.sumption of languor. "You will be writing a book next."

"I will make 'Lena the heroine," retorted Rose, with a keen glance, "and call it 'The Sphinx of Menlo Park.'"

"Fancy 'Lena being called a sphinx," said Ila, who was looking very bored. "Are you coming, 'Lena, or not? I suppose you don't want to be kept standing in the sun."

"Oh, we're all used to that," said Rose. "I have three new freckles that I owe to Mrs. Washington and Caro Folsom. They called yesterday and kept me standing in the sun exactly three quarters of an hour before they made up their minds to come in and stay ten minutes."

"I'd like to go--"

Mrs. Cartright returned, shaking her head.

"Don Roberto does not want to be left alone," she said. "I fortunately thought of a most wonderful remedy for colds, and I have also been telling him about a terrible cold General Lee had once when he was staying with us. He did look so funny, dear great man, with his head tied up in one of old Aunt Sally's bandannas--"

"Please excuse me for interrupting you, dear Mrs. Cartright," said Tiny, firmly; "but I think we had better get out and talk to Don Roberto, and go to the hills another day when 'Lena can go with us. Don't you think that would be best?" she murmured to the other girls. "We might help to amuse him a little."

"It will be vastly to our credit," said Rose, "for he certainly won't amuse us."

"Has anyone ever been amused here?" asked Ila, looking at Magdalena, who was politely listening to Mrs. Cartright's anecdote. "Fancy having the biggest house in the smartest county in California and making no more of it than if it were a cottage. The rest of the houses are so cut up; but fancy what dances we could have here."

"I have been thinking over a plan," said Tiny, "and that is to try to manage Don Roberto. 'Lena can't, but I think the rest of us could, and Mrs. Yorba likes to give parties."

"I am told that in early days there was an extra burst of lawlessness after each of her b.a.l.l.s,--reaction," said Rose.

"I don't think that it is nice for us to be discussing people at their very doorstep," said Tiny. "I just thought I'd mention my plan. And if it succeeded, and all took charge, as it were, there need be no stiffness in an informal party in the country. Shall we get out?"

"By all means, General Tom Thumb," said Rose, with some ire; "it is very plain who is to be boss in this community, as Mrs. Washington would say."

"Wait till Helena comes," whispered Ila.

XXIV

Don Roberto rose as they approached. He did not take off his skull-cap, but he received them with the courtly grace of the caballero, one of his inheritances which he had not permanently discarded, although he practised what he was pleased to call his American manners in the sanct.i.ty of his home.

He bowed low, kissed their finger-tips, and handed them in turn to the chairs which he first arranged in a semi-circle about his own. When he resumed his former half-reclining att.i.tude he had the air of an invalid sultan holding audience.

"We are _so_ sorry that you have _such_ a dreadful cold," said Tiny, with her sweetest smile and emphasis; "and _so_ glad that we happened to drive up. You couldn't come for a drive with us, could you? We should _love_ to have you."

Don Roberto rose to the bait at once. He was as susceptible to the blandishments of pretty women as Jack Belmont, although their influence over his purse was an independent matter.

"Very glad I am that I have the cold," he answered gallantly; "for it give me the company of three so beautiful ladies. I no can go for drive, for it blow, perhaps; but I no care, so long as you here with me sit."

"Well, we are going to stay a _long_ time; and we are _so_ glad we are back in Menlo again,--so many of us together. We used to love so to come here; it seems _ages_ ago. And now that we have got 'Lena again, you must expect us to fairly overrun the house."

"It is yours," said Don Roberto, in the old vernacular. "Burn it if you will."

Tiny, who had never heard even an anecdote of the early Californians, gave a quick glance at the whiskey flask, but replied undauntedly,--

"How gallant you are, Don Roberto! The young men say such stupid things.

But you _always_ were so original!"

"Poor old dear, I feel like wiping it off," whispered Rose to Ila.

But it was evident that Don Roberto's vision was powdered with the golden dust of flattery. He smiled approvingly into Tiny's pretty face.

"But I say true, and the young mens do not sometimes. It make me young again to see you here."

"One would think you were _old_," said Tiny. "But do you _really_ like to see us here? Should you mind if we came sometimes in the evening? It would be such _fun_ to meet at each other's houses and talk on the verandahs."

"Come all the evenings," said Don Roberto, promptly, "si you talk to me sometimes."

"_I_ want to do that. Ila plays, and Rose sings _beau_tifully. Some evening we will get up charades--to amuse you."

"On Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights I am here."

"Those will be our evenings to come here." She gave a peremptory glance to Rose, who responded hurriedly, "Are you fond of music, Don Roberto?

It will give me great pleasure to sing for you; and Ila has been learning some of my accompaniments."

Don Roberto did not answer for a moment. His memory had played him a trick: it had leaped back to the days of guitars and gratings. He rarely sought the society of gentlewomen, not, at least, of those whose names were on visiting lists. There was something unexpectedly sweet and fragrant in the company of these three beautiful girls. Don Roberto's memories were hanging in a dusty cupboard, and his heart had shrunken like the meat of a nut too long neglected; but there was life at the core, and the memories came forth, wanting only a breath to dust them.

Yes, he should like to have these girls about him. And Magdalena had lived the life of a hermit. It was time for her to enjoy her girlhood.

"Yes," he said, "alway I like the music. Si the piano need tune, I send one man down. You can dance, too, si you like it. Always I like see the young peoples dance."

Tiny clapped her hands. Ila leaned forward and patted his hand.

"What an inspiration!" she exclaimed. "This will be a simply gorgeous house to dance in. Don Roberto, you certainly are an angel!"

Don Roberto had never been called an angel before, but he smiled approvingly. "Some night this week we have the dance," he said. "My wife write you to-night."

"I am on the verge of nervous prostration," whispered Rose, as his attention was claimed by Mrs. Cartright. "The effort of keeping my countenance--but the way you handle a trowel, Tiny, is a new chapter in diplomacy. b.u.t.ter and mola.s.ses for fifty and after; a vaporiser and _peau d'espagne_ for the sharp young things. I was just saying," she added hastily, as Don Roberto reclined suddenly and turned to her, "that young men are a nuisance. I am thinking of writing a book of advice--"

"A book!" cried Don Roberto, his brows rushing together. "You no write the books?"

"Of course she would never publish," interposed Tiny. "She would just write it for our amus.e.m.e.nt. I think it would be so horrid to publish the _cleverest_ book," she said, turning to Magdalena, unmistakable sincerity in her voice. "It has always seemed to me so--so--_horrid_ for women to write things to print--for _anybody_ to read."