"Oh, so much. I really love it. I believe I should like to live here. If we find Pepé shall we come back, do you think?"
"I don't know, darling. It is all so vague, so uncertain; who can tell? We shall, of course, go wherever our search leads us."
"I should not mind seeing other large cities in Spain, but I should like to come back, too. One can live very cheaply. Rodrigo pointed out nice little houses with gardens and all sorts of things which could be rented for forty dollars a year. Think of that. A maid who could cook well might be had for five or six dollars a month he told me. Imagine how wonderfully we could get along on our income."
Mrs. Beltrán smiled at the girl's enthusiasm. "You haven't seen the home of your mother's people," she said. "One can live cheaply in England, too, if one knows how."
"But this is so unique, so unlike any other place, and England is more like our own country."
"Don't you like your own country?"
"Oh, yes, I do, but variety is pleasant. Is it my own country, by the way? I was born in Mexico of English and Spanish parents, was educated in the United States, and here I am neither one thing nor another."
"When you marry you will be of the same nationality as your husband; that is the law."
"Oh, is it? How strange. Are you a Spaniard, then?"
"No, a widow has a right to resume her own nationality if she makes the claim within a year, so I became an English woman."