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proud of thee!"

Benicia pinched her mother's chin, her mischievous eyes softening. "Ay, my mother, I have done my little best, but I never shall be you. I am afraid I love to dance through the night and flirt my breath away better than I love the intellectual conversation of the few people you think worthy to sit about you in the evenings. I am like a little butterfly sitting on the mane of a mountain lion--"

"Tush! Tush! Thou knowest more than any girl in Monterey, and I am satisfied with thee. Think of the books thou hast read, the languages thou hast learned from the Senor Hartnell. Ay, my little one, nobody but thou wouldst dare to say thou cared for nothing but dancing and flirting, although I will admit that even Ysabel Herrera could scarce rival thee at either."

"Ay, my poor Ysabel! My heart breaks every night when I say a prayer for her." She tightened the clasp of her arms and pressed her face close to her mother's. "Mamacita, darling," she said coaxingly, "I have a big favour to beg. Ay, an enormous one! How dare I ask it?"

"Aha! What is it? I should like to know. I thought thy tenderness was a little anxious."

"Ay, mamacita! Do not refuse me or it will break my heart. On Wednesday night Don Thomas Larkin gives a ball at his house to the officers of the American squadron. Oh, mamacita! mamacita! darling! do, do let me go!"

"Benicia! Thou wouldst meet those men? Valgame Dios! And thou art a child of mine!"

She flung the girl from her, and walked rapidly up and down the room, Benicia following with her little white hands outstretched. "Dearest one, I know just how you feel about it! But think a moment. They have come to stay. They will never go. We shall meet them everywhere--every night--every day. And my new gown, mamacita! The beautiful silver spangles! There is not such a gown in Monterey! Ay, I must go. And they say the Americans hop like puppies when they dance. How I shall laugh at them! And it is not once in the year that I have a chance to speak English, and none of the other girls can. And all the girls, all the girls, all the girls, will go to this ball. Oh, mamacita!"

Her mother was obliged to laugh. "Well, well, I cannot refuse you anything; you know that! Go to the ball! Ay, yi, do not smother me! As you have said--that little head can think--we must meet these insolent braggarts sooner or later. So I would not--" her cheeks blanched suddenly, she caught her daughter's face between her hands, and bent her piercing eyes above the girl's soft depths. "Mother of God! That could not be. My child! Thou couldst never love an American! A Gringo! A Protestant! Holy Mary!"

Benicia threw back her head and gave a long laugh--the light rippling laugh of a girl who has scarcely dreamed of lovers. "I love an American? Oh,