After four years of social life among the Spanish and French of St. Louis and New Orleans, I had thought myself well versed in all the possibilities of Latin beauty. The Senorita Alisanda was to all those creole belles as a queen to kitchen maids. Eyes of velvety black, full of pride and fire and languor; silky hair, not of the hard, glossy hue of the raven's wing, but soft and warming to chestnut where the sun shone through a straying lock; face oval and of that clear, warm pallor unknown to women of Northern blood; a straight nose with well-opened, sensitive nostrils; a scarlet-lipped mouth, whose kiss would have thrilled a dying man. But he is a fool who seeks to set down beauty in a catalogue. It was not at her eyes or hair or face that I gazed; it was at her, at the radiant spirit which shone out through that lovely mask of flesh. She met my gaze with a directness which showed English training, as did also the slightness of her accent. Her manner was most gracious, without a trace of condescension, yet with an underlying note of haughtiness, forgotten in the liquid melody of her voice. "Senor, I trust that you will pardon the error of my kinsman,--my uncle,--and that you will accept our thanks for the service." "I am repaid,--a thousand times,--senorita!" I stammered, the while my dazzled eyes drank in her radiant beauty. She bowed composedly and withdrew into the gloom of the coach. That was all. But it left me half dazed. Not until the driver trudged back and reached for the reins did it come upon me that I was staring blankly in through the empty window at the outline of the don's shoulder. The best I can say is that I did not find my mouth agape. A touch of my heel and a hint at the bit sent my nag jogging on toward the Capitol, leaving the rescued coach to flounder along its opposite way as best it could, through the avenue already famous for its two miles of length, its hundred yards of width, and its two feet of depth. Wearied as I was by the last of many days' hard riding from the Ohio, I was the lighter for carrying with me a scarlet-lipped vision with eyes like sloes. CHAPTER II PLAIN THOMAS JEFFERSON It was the third day after my arrival in Washington. The clear sky, which in the forenoon had lured me down from the Capitol Hill along the forest-clad banks of the little Tiber, had brought at the noon hour a warmth of sunshine that made by no means ungrateful the shade of a giant tulip poplar. I was lolling at my ease on the bank of the beautiful stream when a rider broke cover from a thicket of azaleas and cantered toward me down along the bank. The first glance at his horse brought me to my feet, eager-eyed. It was one of the most mettlesome and shapely mounts I had ever had the pleasure to view. The rider, attracted perhaps by my ill-concealed admiration, drew up before me with the easy control of a perfect horseman, and touched his cocked hat. "A pleasant day, sir, for a lover of wild Nature," he said.