mountains.

Tio Pancho, the hotel proprietor, set his great silver-rimmed _anteojos_
upon his nose and divided the papers into a number of smaller rolls.
A barefooted _muchacho_ dashed in, desiring the post of messenger.

"_Bien venido_," said Tio Pancho. "This to Senora Conant; that to el
Doctor S-S-Schlegel--_Dios_! what a name to say!--that to Senor Davis
--one for Don Alberto. These two for the _Casa de Huespedes, Numero
6, en la calle de las Buenas Gracias_. And say to them all, _muchacho_,
that the _Pajaro_ sails for Panama at three this afternoon. If any have
letters to send by the post, let them come quickly, that they may
first pass through the _correo_."

Mrs. Conant received her roll of newspapers at four o'clock. The boy
was late in delivering them, because he had been deflected from his
duty by an iguana that crossed his path and to which he immediately
gave chase. But it made no hardship, for she had no letters to send.

She was idling in a hammock in the patio of the house that she
occupied, half awake, half happily dreaming of the paradise that she
and Merriam had created out of the wrecks of their pasts. She was
content now for the horizon of that shimmering sea to be the horizon
of her life. They had shut out the world and closed the door.

Merriam was coming to her house at seven, after his dinner at the
hotel. She would put on a white dress and an apricot-coloured lace
mantilla, and they would walk an hour under the cocoanut palms by the
lagoon. She smiled contentedly, and chose a paper at random from the
roll the boy had brought.