mills to the right,' and combine business with art? That's the fault of
you geniuses. But what's this blanketed figure doing here, lying before
the furnace? You never saw one of my miners there,--and a Mexican, too,
by his serape." "That," quoth Mistress Carmen, coolly, "was put in
to fill up the foreground,--I wanted something there to balance
the picture." "But," continued Thatcher, dropping into unconscious
admiration again, "it's drawn to the life. Tell me, Miss De Haro, before
I ask the aid and counsel of Mrs. Plodgitt, who is my hated rival, and
your lay figure and model?" "Oh," said Carmen, with a little sigh, "It's
only poor Coucho." "And where is Concho?" (a little impatiently.) "He's
dead, Don Royal." "Dead?" "Of a verity,--very dead,--murdered by your
countrymen." "I see,--and you know him?" "He was my friend."

"Oh!"

"Truly."

"But" (wickedly), "isn't this a rather ghastly advertisement--outside of
an illustrated newspaper--of my property?"

"Ghastly, Don Royal. Look you, he sleeps."

"Ay" (in Spanish), "as the dead."

Carmen (crossing herself hastily), "After the fashion of the dead."

They were both feeling uncomfortable. Carmen was shivering. But, being
a woman, and tactful, she recovered her head first. "It is a study for
myself, Don Royal; I shall make you another."