"We abolished kings more completely than you did perhaps; in 1776."
"What happened then? Something at the North?"
"Oh, a small matter, quite unimportant; it didn't include Gracias-á-Dios."
"It might have, I don't pretend to know the history of Gracias-á-Dios," replied Garda, rather loftily; "all I know is the history of my own family. In 1776 my grandmother Beatriz was five years old, and even then, they say, water could run under her insteps."
"Why did they keep the poor child in such wet places? It must have been very unhealthy. Won't you have this chair?"
"I'm so tired of chairs."
"Have you been asleep in the hammock all the afternoon?"
"Yes," she confessed. "But I hope I don't show it so plainly? It isn't polite to look sleepy at a party."
"Let us walk up and down for a while: that will waken you," he said, offering his arm.
"Do people walk up and down when the party is such a small one? Is that a northern custom?"