that he had never so thoroughly enjoyed a drive in his life. For the country was somewhat rugged, and the scenery therefore very lovely, the road being bordered on either side by fields of tobacco and sugar, and here and there a patch of cool green Indian corn, divided from the road by low hedges which were just then a perfect blaze of multi-coloured flowers of various descriptions. It was a fairly busy scene, too, for the tobacco was ripe, and the fields were alive with labourers of all colours, from the full-blooded negro to the pure Spaniard, gathering the crop. At length, when they had been travelling for about a couple of hours, and when, despite the charm of everything that he saw around him, Jack began to grow conscious of the fact that he was aching in every joint from the rolling and jolting of the carriage, the vehicle turned off the main road into a lane, access to which was gained through a pair of massive timber gates hung upon piers of ancient, moss-grown masonry; and Don Hermoso announced that they were now upon his own demesne. And here at once Jack became conscious of a very great change in the appearance of everything; for not only was the road upon which they were travelling smooth and well kept, but the fields on either hand, instead of being half-choked with weeds, as had been the case with most of those that they had passed, were scrupulously clean, while the labourers, instead of being picturesque scarecrows, were decently clad, and worked as men do who are content and happy. Every man of them was clearly on the lookout for the carriage, and had a word of respectful greeting for his returning master, while--what was perhaps stranger still--Don Hermoso seemed to intimately know every man, woman, and child on the place, though there were hundreds of them. At length a bend in the road brought the house in sight, at a distance of about a mile, and Jack saw before him, perched on the shoulder of a low eminence, a long, white, bungalow-like structure, with a high, thatched roof, and a gallery and veranda running along the whole length of the front, and apparently along the sides also. The building was of one storey only, and although the veranda was so broad as to cast the whole of the front into deep shadow it seemed to Jack that that front was pierced by at least a dozen doors and windows. As Jack looked, two female figures clad in white suddenly made their appearance in the centre of the gallery, and so beautifully clear was the atmosphere that, even at that distance, it could be distinctly seen that they were waving their pocket handkerchiefs to the occupants of the coach. Carlos also saw them, and frantically waved his panama by way of reply, shouting, as he did so: "Hurrah, Padre; hurrah, Jack! Look! there are the Madre and Isolda out on the gallery, waving to us! I'll bet that they have been watching the bend of the road through their opera-glasses for the last hour or more!"