"We're nearly home," Consuello said.
On either side were orchard trees. The air was quiet, cool. Hedges of pink Cherokee roses lined the road. The machine stopped beside a stretch of closely cropped lawn. On the wide veranda of the Carrillo home John caught his first glimpse of Consuello's father and mother, seated restfully in porch chairs. He saw both had snow white hair.
"Here we are—there's daddy and mamma," Consuello said, waving to them.
They started across the lawn to the house, Consuello skipping a few steps ahead of him. He thought her more beautiful than ever before as she danced before him clearly outlined in her white frock against the deep green of the grass.
CHAPTER V
In the cool of the evening, after dinner, they sat on the veranda listening to the reminiscent stories of Consuello's father, the first of the fine old Spanish aristocrats of Southern California John had ever met. Don Ygnacio Carrillo wore a dark blue broadcloth suit with black velvet lapels and cuffs, a spotless, stiffly starched, pleated linen shirt and a loose black silk bow tie. His fluffy white hair contrasted beautifully, John thought, with his skin, tinted a pale amber.
The gracious hospitality of his hosts, so typical of the pioneers of the early southland, had put John completely at his ease. They had eaten from a solid mahogany table which, he was told, had been brought "around the Horn" in a sailing vessel.
Consuello curled herself at her father's feet. Her mother, whose grandfather made the arduous trip across the isthmus which Consuello had described, was the descendant of a New England family who had adopted the picturesque customs of the Spanish family into which she had married. As she sat with them she wore a finely-spun black lace mantilla, or shawl, around her shoulders.