"Ah, yes, they were old friends. Two daughters, admirable girls, devoted to their mother, who had suffered much and whose husband had made away with most of the estates. There was an American lady in her house, she rented two rooms."
"A friend of mine. She came from the same place, and we have known each other from girlhood."
Then the ice was broken, and Miss Holmes in a certain manner was vouched for, which rather amused her, yet she accepted the Spanish woman's pride. Many of them felt as if they had been banished from their own land by these usurpers. Others accepted the new order of things, and joined heart and soul in the advancement of the place, the advancement of their own fortunes also. But these were mostly men. The prejudice of the women died harder.
The children were in a group at one of the little hillocks, much amused it would seem by their laughter. And the two women patched up a bit of friendship which they both needed, seeing they were near neighbors, and interested in the education of young people, Miss Holmes listened to what the elder woman said and did not contradict or call the ideas old-fashioned. After all it was very like some of her old grandmother's strictures, and she was a staunch Puritan. What would she have said to women who had not yet reached middle life, and had planned to go to a strange land to seek their fortunes!
The Señora was so well satisfied that she asked Miss Holmes to come and take coffee and sweetmeats with her the next afternoon.
Oh, how lovely the hills and vales were as they wandered homeward. For now it was the time of growth and bloom and such sweetness in the air that Marian Holmes thought of the gales of Araby the blest. Truly it was an enchanted land. The birds were filling the air with melody, here and there a farmer or gardener, for there was fine cultivated lands about the foothills, and even higher up there were great patches of green where some one would reap a harvest, garden stuff waving or running about rich with melon blooms, here the blue of the wild forget-me-nots and the lupines. And further on flocks of sheep nibbling the tufts of grass or alfalfa. Some one was singing a song, a rich, young voice:
"Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me,
I'm goin' to California with my banjo on my knee."
Here and there in a clump of trees was a dark shadow, and the long slant rays betokened the coming of evening. It gave one a luxurious emotion, as if here was the true flavor of life.
Miss Holmes was feeling a little sorry for those swept off of their own land, as it were.