"I heard he had, and I heard the settlers rejoicing about it, but I never knew how it happened-I would like to hear."

"Well, ladies and gentlemen," said Elvira, coming, "if my eloquence and persuasive powers were not of the unprecedented quality they really are, I would never have been able to persuade the senorita to come. Would you believe it? she was actually in bed for the night."

"Ah!" Clarence exclaimed, regretfully.

"Yes, I told her that if she didn't come, you would take the champagne to her room, and this so frightened her, that she began to dress herself immediately, but the poor little thing trembles as if she had the ague.

I gave her a cashmere wrapper and soft shawl to wrap up and not take cold."

"Go and tell her we have good news for her," suggested George.

"She'll think you are jesting," Elvira answered.

"Not if you tell her that we know what it is that Dona Josefa has against Darrell, and we'll make it all right."

"Oh, don't deceive the poor little thing when she seems as if all her strength is already gone from her," Elvira said.

"But we are not deceiving her," George insisted.

"Hush! here she comes," Elvira said, and Mercedes slowly approached them. "Come, sweet Baby, these gentlemen say they have some awful nice news for you."

"News that the wine is good, I suppose, but I don't like wine," she said.

"No, it isn't the wine," George said, rising for Mercedes to take his place. "Sit down here between Darrell and myself and you shall hear all about it."

"What is it?" Mercedes asked, looking from one to the other.

"I can't tell you, little sister, for they haven't told me," Elvira said.

"Darrell, you fill the glasses now while I tell these senoritas what sort of a black sheep Dona Josefa thinks you are, and so thinking, objects to you." Clarence proceeded to put ice into the glasses, while George continued: "The objection is, that she believes the Darrells are '_squatters_,' like all the others at the rancho, whereas Clarence bought their land from Don Mariano and paid for it even before they built their house."

"Oh! I am so glad to hear that!" Elvira exclaimed with a sigh of relief.

"But why don't papa tell it to mamma? It is an injustice to the Darrells to let her ignore it."

"It is my fault, Mrs. Mechlin," Clarence said; "my father holds the accepted but very erroneous popular opinions about '_squatter rights_,'

and I, to avoid painful discussions with him, requested Senor Alamar not to say, for the present, that I had paid for the land."

"You see, little sister, how, after all, you have not been loving a squatter? What a pity," said George, putting his arm around Mercedes, who buried her face in the lappels of his coat. "It isn't half so romantic to love a plain gentleman as to love a brigand, or, at least, a squatter."

"Dona Josefa's objection to me is perfectly proper and correct. I would not let a daughter of mine marry a squatter no more than to marry a tramp. I shall, of course, request Don Mariano to put me right in her estimation, and tell her I do not feel authorized by Congress to steal land, though my father and many other honest men hold different opinions about it."

"There! Do you hear that? Let us have a bumper, and drown the squatter in champagne! Exit tramp! Enter gentleman! Here is to Baby's health,"

said George.

All emptied their glasses, except Mercedes, whose hand shook so violently that she spilled more wine than she drank.

"Don't lose your courage now," Elvira said to her.

"I believe pussy is regretting she lost her squatter. Isn't that so, pussy? You have not said one word. Are you regretting that, after all, you cannot sacrifice to love your patrician pride by marrying a land-shark, thus proving you are a heroine?"

"Oh, what a silly boy," she said, laughing.

"Really, I think our romance is spoiled. It would have been so fine-like a dime novel-to have carried you off bodily by order of infuriated, cruel parents, and on arriving at New York marry you, at the point of a loaded revolver, to a bald-headed, millionaire! Your midnight shrieks would have made the blood of the passers-by curdle! Then Clarence would have rushed in and stabbed the millionaire, and you, falling across his prostrate body, said: 'Tramp or not, I am thine!'"

"Oh, George, stop your nonsense," Elvira said.

"Whereas now," George went on, "the unpoetical fact comes out that Darrell is a decent sort of a fellow, and there is no reason why a proper girl shouldn't have him for her husband; and our romance is stripped of its thrilling features, as the hero will not steal, even when Congress tells him to. And that is the _denouement_, with the addition only that I am hungry. What have you got to eat in those two little baskets that Tano brought on board, and which smell so nice?"

"Ah, yes, I had forgotten. Mamma put up a nice lunch, thinking we might want it if we felt sick, or didn't want to go to the table. I'll go and bring it," said Elvira, setting down her glass, and rising.

"Let me go," said George, "as I am the hungry one."

"Bring both baskets. Let us see what they have. Ah, I was forgetting, I have the three little silver plates in my satchel; we must have those,"

added Elvira, following her husband.

"Can you forgive my stupidity? See what a world of anxious thoughts we would have avoided by explaining to Dona Josefa everything," said Clarence to Mercedes.

"Yes, it was unfortunate. But you will return soon and ask papa to tell her all, will you not?"

"Indeed I will, by the next steamer; and will have better heart to await your return. My precious angel, don't ever forget how devotedly I idolize you! Will you let me send you a ring, if your mother allows me?"

"Couldn't you _bring_ it yourself?"

"Oh, Mercedes, my beloved! how happy you make me!"

"Look here," said George, groping in the dark; "Where are the magic baskets? I don't smell them."

"I knew you wouldn't, that is why I came to find them."

"Look here! if you follow a fellow like that, you'll get kissed," said he, taking his wife in his arms, and covering her face with kisses.

"Stop, George, some one might pass who didn't know you are my husband."

"That's so," said he, desisting. "But the fact of the matter is, that I want to kiss you all the time, you are so pretty and such a sweet darling. Give me the basket, and let your hungry husband go before he eats you up."

"Here they are. I'll carry the plates and knives."

"Tano said something about boned turkey, _a la espanola_, stuffed with mashed almonds and '_ajonjoli_,'" said George, setting the baskets on a chair before Clarence; "and something about a '_tortita de aceituna_,'

with sweet marjoram, and I think we got them, to judge by their fragrance."

"Shall I go and order more wine?" asked Clarence.

"Oh, no, no," said Elvira, "this is plenty."

"How strange it is that I haven't felt this wine at all," said Mercedes; "one-half glass only will make my face unpleasantly warm always, for that reason I dislike wines; but see, I drank this whole glassful, and I don't feel it any more than if it was water."

"But don't you feel warmer? You were shivering when you came from your room," George said.

"Yes, I feel better," she said, timidly.