ridiculous stories, and teaches them to decorate that heathen mound
as if it were a shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows. He was almost rude
to Dr. West yesterday."

"But you have encouraged him in his confidential position here,"
said Maruja. "You forget, my mother, how you got him to 'duena'
Euriqueta with the Colonel Brown; how you let him frighten the
young Englishman who was too attentive to Dorotea; how you set him
even upon poor Raymond, and failed so dismally that I had to take
him myself in hand."

"But if I choose to charge him with explanations that I can not
make myself without derogating from the time-honored hospitality of
the casa, that is another thing. It is not," said Dona Maria, with
a certain massive dignity, that, inconsistent as it was with the
weakness of her argument, was not without impressiveness, "it is
not yet, Blessed Santa Maria, that we are obliged to take notice
ourself of the pretensions of every guest beneath our roof like the
match-making, daughter-selling English and Americans. And THEN
Pereo had tact and discrimination. Now he is mad! There are
strangers and strangers. The whole valley is full of them--one can
discriminate, since the old families year by year are growing less."

"Surely not," said Maruja, innocently. "There is the excellent
Ramierrez, who has lately almost taken him a wife from the singing-
hall in San Francisco; he may yet be snatched from the fire. There
is the youthful Jose Castro, the sole padrono of our national bull-
fight at Soquel, the famous horse-breaker, and the winner of I know
not how many races. And have we not Vincente Peralta, who will
run, it is said, for the American Congress. He can read and write--