"I have been well, Chonita," he said.

At this moment our attention was startled by a sharp exclamation from
Valencia. Prudencia had announced her engagement. Valencia had refused
many suitors, but she had intended to marry Reinaldo Iturbi y Moncada.
Not that she loved him: he was the most brilliant match in three
hundred leagues. Within the last year he had bent the knee to the
famous coquette; but she had lost her temper one day,--or, rather, it
had found her,--and after a violent quarrel he had galloped away, and
gone almost immediately to Los Angeles, there to remain until Don
Juan went after him with a bushel of gold. She controlled herself in
a moment, and swayed her graceful body over Prudencia, kissing her
lightly on the cheek.

"Thou baby, to marry!" she said, softly. "Thou didst take away my
breath. Thou dost look no more than fourteen years. I had forgotten
the grand merienda of thy eighteenth birthday."

Prudencia's little bosom swelled with pride at the discomfiture of the
haughty beauty who had rarely remembered to notice her. Prudencia was
not poor; she owned a goodly rancho; but it was an hacienda to the
state of a Menendez.

"Thou wilt be one of my bridesmaids, no, Doña Valencia?" she asked.

"That will be the proud day of my life," said Valencia, graciously.

"We have a ball to-night," said Chonita.

"Thou wouldst have had word to-day. Thou wilt stay now, no? and not