What he said about Lola's looks was true; the other two daughters had inherited from him their water-blue eyes and florid complexions, while Lola had the eyes of her mother--so far as the color went. But could the pale, quiet woman ever have known the deep, intense feeling, or the heartfelt, open joyousness that spoke from her daughter's eyes? Who could tell? She had come to California in early days a sad-eyed, lonely woman, and--she had not married her first love. Her name Lola owed to the only romantic notion her mother ever had, as her father said. When the child had grown to be two or three years old, and Mrs. Wheaton had noted but too often the dreary look that would creep into her eyes, even at this tender age, she kissed the little one tenderly one day and murmured, her sad eyes raised to heaven, "Dolores, he called me, and if he be dead, it will seem like an atonement to give the name to my pet child." Her husband, blustering and pompous in his ways--meaning to be commanding and dignified--seldom opposed a wish his wife decidedly expressed, never stopping to ask reason or motive; and the Spanish children with whom Lola's nurse came in contact calling her by this diminutive, the child had grown up rejoicing in her outlandish name, and an unusually large allowance of good looks. In the meantime Matilda's hair has been "done up" and duly admired, and Miss Fanny, loath to abandon her comfortable position on the lounge, has just requested Lola to bring for her inspection the list of invitations made out for the New-Year ball to be given by Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton. "Wonder what Angelina Stubbs will wear?" soliloquized Miss Fanny. "And how she'll make that diamond glitter! Wonder if papa will ever give me the solitaire he promised me?"--turning to her mother. "No doubt of it, if he has promised it," was the quiet reply. "Swampoodle was up to three hundred this morning. I should think he could afford it." Then glancing at the list again, she continued: "Here's young Somervale's name. I suppose Angelina will be hanging on his arm all the evening." "Charles Somervale?" asked Matilda. "Papa said we ought not to have him come; he says his salary will no more than pay for the kid gloves and cravats he's got to buy when he attends gatherings like these, and papa thinks it is wrong to encourage a poor young man in acquiring a taste for fashionable society." "Poor or not," persisted Miss Fanny, "he's got to come, because he's a splendid figure in a ball-room, and such a dancer! Poor, indeed! Why, Angelina Stubbs would take him this moment, and her father would jump at the chance." "I should think he would--to get rid of her domineering," laughed Miss Matilda. "But our papa isn't a widower, and I doubt that he would give any man a fortune to have him marry one of his daughters."