“I wonder how you get your mail here,” Laura said. “Do you suppose a Mexican caballero comes dashing up on a donkey, sweeps his hat in a wide arc toward the ground, and then deposits the bills and things as though they were special messages from the king of Spain?”
“Oh, Laura, don’t be silly,” Bess was taking her romance seriously and didn’t want it to be spoiled with laughter. “Do you suppose,” she turned to Nan now, “that all those people that we saw down there in the courtyard live on this estate.”
“Probably those and many more,” Nan assented, “but we’ll have to wait for the tour of the estate that’s been promised before we know for sure. And there are a million other things, at least that I want to know about.”
“Me too,” Laura agreed, and the rest chimed in, for this Mexican hacienda was something that captured the imagination of all of them.
CHAPTER XXII
STUBBORN FOOLS
“Oh, Bess, you should see yourself now,” Nan laughed the next morning. It was early and the girls were all mounted on mules as they passed through the archway of the patio and out into the gardens with their huge palms and brilliant flowers and birds.
“Feel like a fool myself,” Adair grumbled as he tried to adjust his position on the beast he was riding. And truly, he was a ridiculous figure.
“Well, dad,” Alice pretended that she was trying to mollify him, “you just weren’t made to ride a mule. Nor were you,” she looked at Walker Jamieson’s long dangling legs as she spoke.