The Spanish nature is an impetuous, a demonstrative, a fiery nature. The Señorita was a Spaniard. As Buttons told all this in passionate words, to which his ardent love gave resistless eloquence, her whole manner showed that her heart responded. An uncontrollable excitement filled her being; her large, lustrous eyes, bright with the glow of the South, now beamed more luminously through her tears, and--in short: Buttons felt encouraged--and ventured nearer--and, almost before he knew it himself, somehow or other, his arm had got round a slender waist! While the Señorita trembled--timidly drew back--and then all was still!--except, of course, whisperings--and broken sentences--and soft, sweet......Well, all these were brought to an abrupt close by the return of the Don and his sister. As they entered the room they saw Buttons at one end, and the Señorita at the other. The moonbeams stole in softly through the window. "Why did you not call for a light?" "Oh, it is so pleasant in the moonshine!" At the end of a few weeks there came the great, the unlooked-for, the unhoped-for news--the Peace of Villafranca! So war was over. Moreover, the road was open. They could go wherever they wished. Buttons was now strong enough to travel. Dick and the Senator were as well as ever. The news of the Peace was delightful to the travellers. Not so, however, to the Bolognese. They railed at Napoleon. They forgot all that he had done, and taunted him with what he had neglected to do. They insulted him. They made caricatures of him. They spread scandalous reports about him. Such is the way of the world. CHAPTER XLIX. CROSSING INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY.--CONSTERNATION OF THE CUSTOM-HOUSE OFFICERS. The journey was a pleasant one. The Spaniards were an agreeable addition to the party in the estimation of others than Buttons. The Senator devoted himself particularly to the elder sister. Indeed, his acquaintance with _La Cica_, as he afterward confessed, had given him a taste for foreign ladies. He carried on little conversations with the Señorita in broken English. The Señorita's English was pretty, but not very idiomatic. The Senator imitated her English remarkably well, and no doubt did it out of compliment. He also astonished the company by speaking at the very top of a voice whose ordinary tone was far stronger than common. [Illustration: Buttons In Bliss.]