"Donde vas con mantón manila, Donde vas con vestido chiné,"
"A lucirme y á ver la verbena, Y á meterme en la cama después."
"Porqué no has venido conmigo Cuando tanto te lo supliqué."
"'Lo sup--li--que,'" he repeated, with slow emphasis.
Felisa laughed, shook her head coquettishly, and answered as the song goes.
sang Julian. "Who is he, little Felisa? Is there any whom I need fear?" He dropped his hand from the strings, and seized the small one so near his own.
"I know a great many young men, cousin, but I will not own that there is a guapo among them. And this I tell you now, that I shall go to la Verbena with whom I will, if ever I return to Sunny Spain."
she sang again defiantly, her thin head-notes rising high and clear. Was there no memory in Beltran's mind for the contralto voice which had sung the song so often on that very spot--a voice so incomparably sweeter that he who had heard the one must wonder how Beltran could tolerate the other.
Agueda was seated half-way down the veranda alone. She could not sit with them, nor did she wish to, nor was she accustomed to companionship with the serving class. She endeavoured to deafen her ears to the sound of their voices. She would have gone to her own room and closed the door, but it was nearer their seclusion than where she sat at present, and then--the air of the room was stifling on this sultry night. She glanced down toward the river, where the dark water rolled on through savannas to the great bay--a sea in itself. She could distinguish nothing; all was black in that blackest of nights. She dared not go forth, for she felt that the storm must soon burst. She sat, her head drooped dejectedly, her hands lying idly in her lap. Uncle Adan joined her, the lantern in his hand showing her dimly his short, dark form. The manager looked sourly at his niece, and cast an angry glance in the direction of the two at the corner of the casa. He had suddenly awakened to the fact that Agueda's kingdom was slipping from her grasp, and if from hers, then from his also. Should this northern Señorita come to be mistress here at San Isidro, what hold had he, or even Agueda herself, over its master? He spoke almost roughly to Agueda.
"Go you and join them," he said. "Go where by right you belong."