"Who is that divine young creature who played the guitar until she set me to dreaming of old Spain?"
"Why, that musical divinity," said Estill, with a hearty laugh, "is my only sister Morelia; or Mora, as we have become used to calling her. I shall be pleased to present you, for I am truly relieved to find some one who can appreciate her music, which always sounded to me very much like cats fighting."
A moment later the young men were upon the platform, and young Estill said, in his easy, good-humored way:—
"Sister Mora, let me present my friend, Mr. Warlow, on whom your music has had the strange effect of setting him to dreaming, not of cats on the roof, but of castles in Spain,—which I have by his own confession."
She gave young Warlow a fair, dimpled hand, on which flashed one ring of rose-colored amethyst, and, after he had bowed very low, their eyes met in a swift glance of half-puzzled recognition and surprise, while a magnetic shock caused them both to tremble; but quickly recovering, she said, with a smile, while toying with a bracelet of carved Neapolitan coral:—
"My brother's criticisms are not of much value, for the sweetest sounds to his ears are the bellowings of beef-cattle."
Then, as she and Clifford sauntered out to a seat under a tree, he said:—
"How strange it is, Miss Estill, that I have never met you before, for it seems as though I have known you for years!"
"Why, Mr. Warlow, I was just trying to recall the time and place where I had seen you. It must have been while we were traveling that we have been thrown together for a moment; yet I can not now remember the circumstance," she replied, with a look of interest dawning in her blue eyes.
"If we had I would not have forgotten such a pleasant incident, Miss Estill. But I am puzzled to think why I remember even your tone and manner so well, for I can't recall any chance meeting with you in the past."