When the meal was at length over, Mrs. Carew, with a bow to Mrs. Rutherford as her most distinguished guest, rose. Garda called Winthrop's attention, as they also rose, to the fact that she had scarcely spoken six sentences of Spanish during its entire continuance. "See how well I have obeyed you," she said. "Surely I did not venture a command?" "I think you did. At least you came as near it as you dared, and you are very daring." "I? Never in the world! You are quite mistaken, Miss Thorne, I am the exact opposite of that," he answered, laughing. "But I should think you would like me to at least believe you so," responded Garda, looking at him with wonder. "Believe me to be daring? We probably use the word in a different sense; it isn't a word I am fond of, I confess; but I don't think you would find me lacking in any emergency." "Oh, emergencies!--they never come to Gracias. Now please don't say, like the dear old Doctor, 'May they never come to _you_, my dearest child!'" "I will say, then--may I be present when they do." "But you won't be," responded Garda, her tone suddenly changing; "you will go away, Mrs. Harold will go away, everybody will go away, and we shall be left alone again, mamma and I, on this old shore!" "But you have seemed to me very happy here on this old shore," said Winthrop, in a tone which was indulgent as well as comforting--she had looked so young, so like a child, as she made her complaint. "So I have been--until now. But now that I have seen you, now that I have seen Mrs. Harold, I--I don't know." She looked at him wistfully. This little conversation had gone on while they were all returning through the hall to the front drawing-room. Manuel, however, who was with Mrs. Harold, had a plan of his own, he turned boldly aside towards the closed door of the back drawing-room, his intention being to establish himself with the charming northern lady upon a certain sofa which he remembered at the extreme end of that broad apartment; if isolation were a northern fashion, he would be isolated too. But Mrs. Carew (with the returning lamp on her mind) saw his hand upon the knob, and summoned him in haste: "Mr. Ruiz! Mr. Ruiz!" When he obeyed her call, she begged him fervently to promise to sing for them immediately that "sweet little air" which it seemed was "such a favorite" of hers, though when he asked her to define it more clearly, she was unable to recall its name, the words, or any characteristic by which he could identify it; however, by this effort of the imagination the door of the back drawing-room was kept closed, and all her guests were piloted safely to the front room by the way they had come. The lamp was in position, only the retreating legs of Pompey were visible through the dining-room door; the mistress of the house, unused to strategy, sank into a chair, and furtively passed her handkerchief across her brow. Manuel was already tuning the guitar.