foreigners, almost all Germans, who had bought of Karl. Furthermore,
he was getting old, his wife's inheritance amounted to about twenty
millions of dollars, and perhaps his brother-in-law was showing the
better judgment in returning to Europe.

So he leased some of the plantations, handed over the superintendence
of others to those mentioned in the will who considered themselves
left-handed members of the family--of which Desnoyers as the Patron
received their submissive allegiance--and moved to Buenos Aires.

By this move, he was able to keep an eye on his son who continued living
a dissipated life without making any headway in his engineering studies.
Then, too, Chichi was now almost a woman--her robust development making
her look older than she was--and it was not expedient to keep her on the
estate to become a rustic senorita like her mother.

Dona Luisa had also tired of ranch life, the social triumphs of her
sister making her a little restless. She was incapable of feeling
jealous, but material ambitions made her anxious that her children
should not bring up the rear of the procession in which the other
grandchildren were cutting such a dashing figure.

During the year, most wonderful reports from Germany were finding their
way to the Desnoyers home in the Capital. "The aunt from Berlin," as the
children called her, kept sending long letters filled with accounts
of dances, dinners, hunting parties and titles--many high-sounding and
military titles;--"our brother, the Colonel," "our cousin, the Baron,"
"our uncle, the Intimate Councillor," "our great-uncle, the Truly
Intimate." All the extravagances of the German social ladder, which
incessantly manufactures new titles in order to satisfy the thirst for