"It is not all the Americans," Miss Holmes said, in answer to the Señora's strictures. "All the Eastern cities I have seen are quite unlike this. They grew slowly, and each from its own peculiar industry. We had no gold mines on the Eastern coast, and you are likely to prize more highly the fortunes you have to struggle for. Here we have every nation, it seems to me, and often the very liberty of choice degenerates into license. But it is hardly fair to blame it all on our people."
"They have invaded us and taken away our land, our rights. Years ago we were happy and content, and now it is all excitement, and if you do not join you are pushed to the wall, driven out. The gold in the hills was all ours."
"But you let it lie there. Yes, you could have discovered it. It was the wild dream of more than one explorer, and yet he never tapped the great secrets the land held."
Now that the hitherto placid Spanish woman was roused she went over the ground with great bitterness, the war, the ceding of the country, the influx of the nations for greed. Half her talk lapsed into her native tongue. Miss Holmes pitied her in a certain way, but was it not the old, old story since De Soto had crossed the Continent and Tonti came down the Mississippi? The weaker nation was always distanced by the stronger. And was supine content a virtue?
Meanwhile, the children had a merry time. Carmen gained courage to mount Pelajo and rode around in fine style. The younger ones wanted their turn. When they were called in to tea their cheeks glowed, their eyes were bright with excitement, and they chattered like a flock of birds.
The Señora looked on in surprise.
"Do you always allow so much wildness?" she asked, in a rather disapproving tone.
If they had a little frolic their walk home always sobered them.
"Oh, no," returned Miss Holmes, with a smile. "They have lessons. This is a holiday. And I am glad for Laverne to have companions. We sometimes think she gets too grave."
"Girls," and their mother rapped on the table. What with their laughing, the broken English, and the Spanish they were in quite a whirl. Laverne looked on more calmly. Indeed, the Señora was a little angry that she seemed rather to shame her girls.