Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/192

180 her! Pilar will wear one of them, and I will wear one. They are not in the present estyle, no; but the present estyle is very ugly, no? And these are of the Spanish estyle, which is always good. Yes?"

Next day Mrs. Peyton and Daphne drove over to Las Flores behind the little ponies and spent the afternoon trying on the rich old dresses unpacked from bestudded Spanish chests. They were beautiful, and they became Daphne's piquant style. With her hair gathered hastily and held by a huge comb, with her cheeks aglow with excitement, with her slim lithe figure in the old time long corsage and flounces, Daphne was a picture. She was much pleased and a little astonished at what the mirror showed her. She even put on the silk stockings and buskins with crossed straps, and secretly rubbed her legs together to feel the silk creak. She had a keen sense of the beautiful, but was still too much of a child to have acquired an equally keen sense of the fashionable.

"It is certainly very fetching: she is really beautiful in it," commented Mrs. Peyton doubtfully, to Doña Cazadero, "but"

"But it is not estyle. True. But always has the niña been esso different from all the rest. Why do you want to make her like now?" said Doña Cazadero, with unexpected insight.

"I believe you are right! But I am afraid Mr. Brainerd will never consent"

"I know," said Doña Cazadero. She was astonishing for so apparently idle a lady. "I will myself make the call on Meester Brainerd. Daffy, you will essay nothing of the dress. But you will essay to señor, your father, that Doña Vincente Cazadero will call on heem to-morrow."

At three the following afternoon the Cazadero state coach bumped its way over the half-made road to the bungalow. Brainerd—impressed, somewhat puzzled, and a trifle suspicious over this unusual honour—helped the lady up the steps and into an armchair, where she unfolded a fan and looked about her.

"You have here the nice ranchita," she stated, "I have never been here."