Nancy first and last

by Amy Ella Blanchard

So on the smoothly paved patio they began the pretty dance which necessitated much snapping of fingers, agile twirlings and graceful steps. Anita, a willing pupil, did her best, was applauded and encouraged till she promised to join the dancers the following day.

"Rodrigo will be your partner and will see that you make no mistakes," Amparo reassured her by saying.

They danced till the little maid ran out to bid them "A comer" and then they went in. It was nine o'clock and the stars were shining.

The evening meal over Amparo insisted that Anita must choose the manton de Manila which she would use upon the morrow. "There are two, you see," she confided to her new cousin; "one is my mother's and one is mine." She produced the two shawls from a huge old chest in which they were carefully laid away in blue paper, and spread them out upon the bed. "Now choose," she said.

The pale yellow silk shawl, magnificently embroidered in colors fascinated Anita, but she decided on the other, a white one whose embroidery was quite as good and whose thick fringe was even longer. "You see I have not yet left off my mourning," she said, "and I think the white will look more appropriate. It would seem so very dashing to suddenly parade around in that lovely butterfly thing."

Amparo laughed partly at the broken Spanish, partly because she was happy. She displayed her own costume next; a short crimson skirt trimmed with bands of black velvet, a bodice of black velvet edged with a tinsel braid, a jacket which was worn either picturesquely disposed around the waist or in the usual manner, and a large silk handkerchief arranged in the manner peculiar to the country. Amparo put them all on that Anita might see how they were worn and added long earrings which almost reached her shoulders, and a handsome chain on which was suspended a medal of Our Lady of Carmen, "I shall wear my ornaments to-morrow to the fiesta," she told Anita, "and will begin my vow the next day. One should wear ornaments with this costume, you know." Then she made Anita put on the pretty peasant dress, which Anita was only too glad to do, and they enjoyed the dressing up, as girls do, laughing and chattering till bedtime.

"Such a wonderful day as it has been, madre," said Anita as she stood before a large mirror brushing her short locks, "and to-morrow it will be even more wonderful. I am going to be a real Spanish girl and can dance the jota with Rodrigo. He is really very nice when you come to know him better, so kind and polite. I do not find him so queer looking either, now that I am used to him. He looks like his father, Amparo told me, and when I asked her why Cousin Benilda married such an odd-looking man she said he had everything but good looks and one could do without those. She is a very wise little person. I like her, and Cousin Prudencia is a dear. I thought her very cold and distant at first, didn't you?"

"Not so much so as I expected. She was exquisitely polite, but then Spaniards are so. They sometimes seem very proud and austere, but they have a frank sort of conceit which is really childish."

Anita laughed. "I have noticed that in Rodrigo and it is very amusing. I think, madre, it would have been fine if we could have discovered Pepé right here, for then we could have stayed on indefinitely."

"Do you like it so much, dear?"