‘But how beautifully they ride, too!’ said Polly. ‘Mamma and I were sitting on the hotel piazza the other day, watching two young Spaniards who were performing feats of horsemanship. They dropped four-bit pieces on the dusty road, and riding up to them at full speed clutched them from the ground in some mysterious way that was perfectly wonderful. Then Nick Gutierrez mounted a bucking horse, and actually rolled and lighted a cigarette while the animal bucked with all his might.’ ‘See that cunning, cunning _muchachita_, mamma!’ cried Bell; for, as they stopped at the top of the hill to let the horses breathe, one of the little Mexican children ran after them, holding out a handful of glowing yellow poppies. She was distractingly pretty, with a beauty that is short-lived with the people of her race. The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving coal-black locks, and brought a rich colour to her nut-brown cheek; she had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick, which hung about her picturesquely; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy eyes, the rows of little white teeth behind her laughing red mouth, and the vivid yellow blossoms in her tiny outstretched hand, she was a very charming vision. ‘_Como te llamas_, _muchachita_?’ (What is your name, little one?) asked Bell, airing her Spanish, which was rather good. ‘Teresita,’ she answered, with a pretty accent, as she scratched a set of five grimy little toes to and fro in the dusty ground. ‘Throw her a bit, papa,’ whispered Bell; and, as he did so, Teresita caught the piece of silver very deftly, and ran excitedly back to the centre of the chattering group in front of the house. ‘How intense everything is in California! Do you know what I mean, mamma?’ said Bell. ‘The fruit is so immense, the cañons so deep, the trees so big, the hills so high, the rain so wet, and the drought so dry.’ ‘The fleas so many, the fleas so spry,’ chanted Jack, who had perceived that Bell was talking in rhyme without knowing it. ‘California is just the place for you, Bell; it gives you a chance for innumerable adjectives heaped one on the other.’ ‘I don’t always heap up adjectives,’ replied Bell, with dignity. ‘When I wish to describe you, for instance, I simply say “that hateful boy,” and let it go at that.’ Jack retired to private life for a season. ‘I’d like to paint a picture of Teresita,’ said Margery, who had a pretty talent for sketching, ‘and call it The Summer Child, or some such thing. I should think the famous old colour artists might have loved to paint this gorgeous flame-tinted poppy.’ ‘Not poppy,—eschscholtzia,’ corrected Jack, coming rapidly to the surface again, after Bell’s rebuke, and delivering himself of the tongue-confusing word with a terrible grimace.