Janice arose and found herself well rested after her repose. She drew the lattices at the window and their clatter aroused something else.
Just inside her closed door, leaning against the wall, was something she had not before noticed. It looked like a bag of old clothes covered by a purple serape. This began to move, quite startling the girl for an instant.
The serape was put aside languidly and a bare brown arm appeared. Janice retreated to the other side of the canopied bed and watched. A girl's head was revealed—lank, black hair, a very dark face with high cheek bones, bead-black eyes, and huge silver rings hanging in the lobes of her ears, fairly touching her bared shoulders.
"What do you want here?" gasped Janice.
"I am the one sent, señorita!" ejaculated the girl in English. "I help you, señorita. It is an honor." And, having risen quickly and as gracefully as a panther, she bowed.
"Oh! you are the maid?"
"Sí, señorita!"
Janice decided she must be an Indian—one of pure blood. There was a look about her different from that of the Mexican girls she had seen.
"What is your name?" asked the girl from the North, giving herself up to the ministrations of the maid, who seemed quite skillful.
"Luz, señorita, is what I am called. It is the little name for Lucita, señorita."