truly I have a letter from him here." She turned back the folded
slip of Captain Carroll's note and discovered another below.

Mrs. Saltonstall tapped her daughter's hand with her fan. "You
jest at them, yet you uphold Pereo! Go, now, and sleep yourself
into a better frame of mind. Stop! I hear the Doctor's horse.
Run and see that Pereo receives him properly."

Maruja had barely entered the dark corridor when she came upon the
visitor,--a gray, hard-featured man of sixty,--who had evidently
entered without ceremony. "I see you did not wait to be
announced," she said, sweetly. "My mother will be flattered by
your impatience. You will find her in the patio."

"Pereo did not announce me, as he was probably still under the
effect of the aguardiente he swallowed yesterday," said the Doctor,
dryly. "I met him outside the tienda on the highway the other
night, talking to a pair of cut-throats that I would shoot on
sight."

"The mayordomo has many purchases to make, and must meet a great
many people," said Maruju. "What would you? We can not select HIS
acquaintances; we can hardly choose our own," she added, sweetly.

The Doctor hesitated, as if to reply, and then, with a grim "Good-
morning," passed on towards the patio. Maruja did not follow him.
Her attention was suddenly absorbed by a hitherto unnoticed
motionless figure, that seemed to be hiding in the shadow of an
angle of the passage, as if waiting for her to pass. The keen eyes
of the daughter of Joseph Saltonstall were not deceived. She