Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/87

Rh thick walls, floors of big polished square tiles laid unevenly on the ground. The low ceilings showed huge beams hewn by hand. In the kitchen wing Daphne remembered the great smoke cowl, like a candle extinguisher, and the dark rafters, and the bright utensils glittering in the dusk. There were flowers in the patio, and a curious fountain; and quaint faded old brocaded furniture and fragile, inlaid glassed cabinets full of queer ancient things, and a tinkling piano with a painted scene on its cover, and many frowning, darkened portraits. It was crowded, stuffy, mysteriously ancient within; and sunny, bright, luxuriously lazy without. Daphne never went there without either discovering something inside she had never noticed before; or something lying about outside that was not there at her last visit—a saddle, or riata, or matate, or some such matter. On one or two rare occasions Don Vincente had showed her some of the things in the glassed cabinets and had explained them to her. There was, for instance, the filagreed gold smelling bottle presented to an ancestor by the Queen Isabella herself. As near as Daphne could make out the said ancestor, acting in capacity of page, had while riding in attendance on the queen been thrown off on his head. The queen on hearing the circumstances sent first aid to the injured in the form of kind inquiries and the smelling bottle. As to why the smelling bottle had not thereafter been returned to its royal owner, Don Vincente was not quite clear. But it was very interesting. Daphne, however, was a trifle uncomfortable with the rotund, side whiskered dignified little gentleman. She liked better Doña Cazadero, or Pilar, his daughter. These ladies differed only in size around and age, for Doña Cazadero and her amiable daughter were almost exact replicas inside their pretty rather silly heads and their capacious and very warm breasts. They possessed also about the same low horsepower in energy and high voltage in pride of family and race. They dwelt in wrappers and hammocks all the early part of the day, but came forth nobly every afternoon for a stately drive to town in the victoria.

Sure enough, when they descended and one of the numerous loitering Mexicans had taken charge of their team, Daphne found the ladies in their usual cool nook. The Colonel, at this