too damp here, Julia," and the friend answered, as the husband had -

"I don't know but it is."

I had two surprises in this slight event. I could never have
imagined that the girl had so brunette a name as Julia, or anything
less blond in sound than, say, Evadne, at the very darkest; and I
had made up my mind--Heaven knows why--that her voice would be
harsh. Perhaps I thought it unfair that she should have a sweet
voice added to all that beauty and grace of hers; but she had a
sweet voice, very tender and melodious, with a plangent note in it
that touched me and charmed me. Beautiful and graceful as she was,
she had lacked atmosphere before, and now suddenly she had
atmosphere. I resolved to keep as near to these people as I could,
and not to leave the place as long as they stayed; but I did not
think it well to let them feel that I was aesthetically shadowing
them, and I got up and strolled away toward the pavilion, keeping an
eye in the back of my head upon them.

I sat down in a commanding position, and watched the people
gathering for the concert; and in the drama of a group of Cubans, or
of South Americans, I almost forgot for a moment the pale idyl of my
compatriots at the kiosk. There was a short, stout little Spanish
woman speaking in the shapely sentences which the Latin race
everywhere delights in, and around her was an increasing number of
serious Spanish men, listening as if to important things, and paying
her that respectful attention which always amuses and puzzles me.
In view of what we think their low estimate of women, I cannot make
out whether it is a personal tribute to some specific woman whom
they regard differently from all the rest of her sex, or whether