they blame me for his death, for our poverty, and for all the
other misfortunes that have overtaken us. We live like cats and
dogs."

Don Mario had been drumming his fat fingers impatiently upon the
arm of his chair. Now he exclaimed:

"Your pardon, senora, but I am just now very little interested in
your domestic relations; they do not thrill me--as my own
prospective happiness does. What you say about Rosa only makes me
more eager, for I loathe a sleepy woman. Now tell me, is she--Has
she any-affairs of the heart?"

"N-no, unless perhaps a flirtation with that young American, Juan
O'Reilly." Dona Isabel gave the name its Spanish pronunciation of
"O'Rail-ye."

"Juan O'Reilly? O'Reilly? Oh yes! But what has he to offer a
woman? He is little more than a clerk."

"That is what I tell her. Oh, it hasn't gone far as yet."

"Good!" Don Mario rose to leave, for the exertion of his ride had
made him thirsty. "You may name your own reward for helping me and
I will pay it the day Rosa marries me. Now kindly advise her of my
intentions and tell her I shall come to see her soon."

It was quite true that Johnnie O'Reilly--or "The O'Reilly," as his
friends called him--had little in the way of worldly advantage to
offer any girl, and it was precisely because of this fact that he