"As to that," replied Lola, with a blush, "if I must tell the truth—yes, sir, they are very fond of me. Every year, as soon as it is known that we have come, the young men make their arrangement to give me a serenade, and they even cut down a little tree so as to get in front of my window."
"The serenade was not for you alone," interrupted Carolina, warmly.... "It is for all of us."
"But the tree was mine," replied Lola, with some show of ill-temper.
"The tree! very good; but not the serenade," replied the other, somewhat piqued.
Lola gave her a sharp look, and went on: "Judge for yourself, Señor Rivera, whether it does not show that they are in love with me: when the engineers came to build a bridge, I said that I did not like the place where they had made their arrangements to put it, but I wanted it farther back, ... and as soon as the young men of the village heard what I had said, they made a formal visit to the engineers and told them that the bridge must be put where the señorita wanted it, and that no other site for it must be thought of, because they would put a stop to it; and as the engineers were not willing to change their plans, the result was, the bridge was not built till four years ago."
"All this," said Miguel, "is not so much to your honor as to that of those intelligent young men!"
"Nothing so sanctifies the soul as love and admiration," exclaimed Rivera, sententiously.
Lola said, "Ah!" and blushed.
These three ladies were dressed in an improbable, and, if we may be allowed the expression, an anachronistic style: their dresses were beautiful, picturesque, and even rather fantastic, such as suited only maidens of fifteen. Carolina wore her hair in two braids with silk ribbons in the ends, and constricted her flabby and wrinkled neck with a blue velvet band from which hung a little emerald crucifix: the others, in their attempt to be a little more fashionable, had their hair done up, but they wore just as many ribbons and other ornaments.