had accepted a position here in Cuba, where, from the very nature
of things, promotion was likely to be more rapid than in the New
York office of his firm. He had come to this out-of-the-way place
prepared to live the lonely life of an exile, if an O'Reilly could
be lonely anywhere, and for a brief time he had been glum enough.

But the O'Reillys, from time immemorial, had been born and bred to
exile; it was their breath, their meat and drink, and this
particular member of the clan thrived upon it quite as well as had
the other Johnnies and Michaels and Andys who had journeyed to far
shores. The O'Reillys were audacious men, a bit too heedless of
their own good, perhaps; a bit too light-hearted readily to
impress a grave world with their varied abilities, but sterling
men, for all that, ambitious men, men with lime in their bones and
possessed of a high and ready chivalry that made friends for them
wherever their wandering feet strayed. Spain, France, and the two
Americas had welcomed O'Reillys of one sort or another; even Cuba
had the family name written large upon her scroll. So Johnnie, of
New York and Matanzas, although at first he felt himself a
stranger in a strange land, was not so considered by the Cubans.

A dancing eye speaks every language; a singing heart gathers its
own audience. Before the young Irish-American had more than a
bowing acquaintance with the commonest Spanish verbs he had a
calling acquaintance with some of the most exclusive people of
Matanzas. He puzzled them, to be sure, for they could not fathom
the reason for his ever-bubbling gladness, but they strove to
catch its secret, and, striving, they made friends with him.
O'Reilly did not puzzle their daughters nearly so much: more than
one aristocratic senorita felt sure that she quite understood the