Mrs. Dawson brushed her hair and they were summoned to dinner. They had the upper end of the table. Two other women came in with their husbands. There were some Spaniards among the men, and a few very dark, peculiar-looking people. There was a great deal of talking in tongues unknown to the little girl, but some of the voices had a soft, musical sound.
The little girl was really hungry and enjoyed her dinner. Afterward most of the party played cards. The other lodgers were of the commoner sort, had a dining room to themselves, and generally sallied out in the evening. Fights were not infrequent and the harmless phases of games degenerated into gambling.
Miss Holmes had not mastered the art even on the long voyage. She took Laverne under her wing now.
"You and I will have to learn Spanish," she said. "Once Spain owned all this country."
"And will we have to learn all the other talk? I know some Indian words, there were two old Indian women in our town, and in the summer some of the tribes would come down. But Chinese—that funny reading that comes on tea chests——" and a knot gathered in her forehead.
"We will not take Chinese the first. I have a friend who went out as a missionary and who can talk it fluently. But all down along the coast it is settled by Spaniards, and they were in South America, you know, and it seems as if half the people here were talking it. Then it is a stately and beautiful language. You know you learned some French on shipboard."
"And there are so many things to learn. There were so few in our little place. They spun and knit and sewed, and you made bed quilts in case you were married. Mother had two she had never used, and a great counterpane grandmother had knit."
"Yes. It is a pity they couldn't have been saved for you. I have a chest of heirlooms stored in the house of a cousin at Dorchester, and some Revolutionary relics. My grandfather fought in the war. And I have left them all behind."
Miss Holmes gave a little sighing laugh. She could not tell whether she was glad or sorry that she had taken this long journey to a strange land.
"What did Spain want of America?" queried the little girl.