“Stop, silly. What do you care? It will do old Custer good. He’s so spoiled by the girls, because he’s so handsome and has such a way with him, that it will just do him good to have a girl a little offish with him. It’ll make him all the more eager; you’ll see. Besides, he’s been perfectly crazy about you ever since he saw that picture of you when you were only twelve years old. I was dying to tell you that when I saw you at The Towers. But of course you wouldn’t have cared then, anyway.” “Oh, Raquel, is he?” Lois looked delighted. “Of course if it had been anybody but your brother, I wouldn’t have felt guilty and wouldn’t have acted that way. Oh, I’ll have to get back if only to apologize to Custer.” “Now wouldn’t that make you tired! Apologize!” laughed Raquel. “Custer, fussin’ even Lois! Don’t you do anything of the kind or I shan’t ever speak to you again, or take you home to Los Ranchos with me.” Lois looked at Raquel with her heart in her eyes. “You’re going to take me _home_ with you?” “Why, of course, silly, for as long as you can stand us rough old cow ranchers. And I’m goin’ to ask Anne out, too.” “Your little friend grows surprisingly beautiful,” approved Don Nestor, taking his sun bath with the birds in the patio. “She was a washed-out little thing for the first week or so. But now she is like the lovely golden-haired ladies of Castile.” As indeed she was, in a gown from the inexhaustible treasure chests. Lois’ magnetic charm began to reassert itself with returning health and spirits. She was shortly ordering everybody around with her broken Spanish and her pretty ways, and every one rushed about desperately to please La Loisa. The fat Piedad was at her feet, Concha lolled at her elbow, and old Moso was throwing sheep’s eyes all the time. Even Raquel found it hard not to do what Lois wanted, and was constantly contriving to do things to please her. And Lois herself was full of services these days. The house bloomed with flowers of her plucking, and she managed to amuse Don Nestor greatly with her pantomiming. With Raquel she was eager, striving. An impression had been made upon her which she was never to forget. She hardened herself to long rides over the hills; she learned to saddle and unsaddle her own horse. “But I can’t _lift_ a saddle, Raquel.” Lois had been horror-struck at the idea yet, nevertheless, she soon was proud of her skill, and called every one out for an exhibition. She learned to find water when she was thirsty, if there was any about; to make flap jacks, coffee, even tortillas. The fragile chest, the slender shoulders, began to fill out. Raquel took her into the hills, and made her lie down in the sun till her delicate skin was red. The slight cough, the fatigue which Lois had always felt, soon began to disappear. “Do you know,” she said, “I haven’t had an ache in my back or chest in weeks now. I just noticed yesterday that it never hurts any more.”