"She caught you there, Senor Gonzales," observed Bryton, who was dealing the cards. "Don Rafael, after all, makes the only definite offer." "You are right, Don Keith," returned the other. "With the help of the Americanos, Don Rafael is learning to be a good maker of bargains." "The sooner the rest of you learn the same trick, the better for California!" retorted Rafael. "You hear?" said Don Ricardo. "Sure," assented the major-domo. "What if his mother heard?" "All the saints! There would be murder!" "Por Dios!" exclaimed Rafael, as a servant opened a window because of the thick tobacco smoke; "it is daylight, and I must start for San Diego. My last bachelor carouse is ended, and none of us under the table!" "How sad that we are still able to stand on our own feet!" laughed Merced. "See!" and she sprang to the top of a beautiful silver-decorated chest against the wall; "one of us is even able to dance good-bye to your last night of freedom! Good-bye, O free heart of Don Rafael! On some to-morrow the bride comes!" "Holy Maria!" ejaculated Don Antonio, putting his glass down; "she is dancing on the _donas_ of the bride!" "The _donas_!" echoed Don Ricardo, aghast; "and the bride a young saint stolen from the Church!--the _donas_!" "What's that?" asked Bryton, while the rest applauded the dancer. "_Donas?"_ "The gifts of the groom to the bride,--the gown, the wedding veil, the--holy God! it's sacrilege!" "Is it?" asked the American; "then we'll stop it. Come to coffee, Merced!" Without further ceremony he picked the girl up in his arms, and carried her, laughing and struggling, into the great refectory, where the Indian servants were placing breakfast on the table. "That was quick work, Antonio," observed Don Ricardo, with a breath of relief. "Sure; he is the best of all the Americanos. Ai! even more like the caballeros of other days than our own sons!" Don Ricardo did not care to commit himself so far as that. He contented himself with grumbling at Rafael's indifference. "And the girl a young saint--meant to live in religion!" Bryton rejoined them with a cup of coffee, and both the men hastened to assure him that it was not Rafael who was in fault, but the many glasses he had emptied. "Sure, it was the glasses," affirmed Don Ricardo. "No man of California would let a girl of pleasure dance on the things sacred to the woman of his family; eh, Antonio?" "Of course; at any other time Rafael would have thrown the girl through a window; truly, he would!" "No doubt of it," agreed Bryton. "Dona Luisa has given the boy a long rope. It must be that she has learned that it is too long--she comes back after the years to steady him with a wife,--and such a wife! Young, wealthy, beautiful!" "And a young nun, all but the veil!" "That seems rather a joke--or a tragedy--after all this," and Bryton motioned to the remainders of the night's carouse. "If there is a joke, it is the devil playing it on the saints."