“Yes--and I christened her. But, ah! Señor John, when a Spanish girl is yet a baby, how is it possible to know what name she should be given? A dove!” At this juncture the quarrel without waxed more loud and furious. A girl shrilled something taunting--over and over, in a high key--then, the rumble of a man’s deep growling answered--next, both voices sounded together--a very discord of wrath. “I’d like to get Anastacio to sit for me,” said the painter. “I could call it ‘The Brigand.’ What _do_ you suppose the trouble is _this_ time?” The father was intent upon his salad. In the bottom of the white-and-gold dish he laid a slice of buttered bread well rubbed with garlic--this for a foundation, as it were. Then upon the bread, leaf laid against leaf, so that the effect was that of a huge green rose, he placed the lettuce, all glistening with its dressing of oil and vinegar; and a-top the lettuce, thin circles of silvery onion. “I do not ask,” he said presently, “because it is not necessary to ask. I hear it all at confession.” Señor John smiled, and came back to his painting. “If it is something wicked that Paloma has done,” resumed the father, “I know even before that. For she comes to bring me a custard.” The next moment, the low blue door beside the window was struck so violently from without that it slammed open with a bang against the corner of Father José’s china-cupboard. Then over the threshold on swift foot came a girl, her angry face ivory-pale in contrast with her black eyes and wildly tossed black hair. “But I love the deer!” she burst forth pantingly, as she paused before the father; “and I will _not_ give him away. And if I cannot have him at the new house, then I shall not marry.” The father had been standing with one hand upon his cupboard to steady it, for the bang of the door had set all his precious porcelain to rattling. Now, by a rolling of his eyes, a pursing of his lips, and a sidewise wagging of his head, he directed the girl’s look toward the easel. She half whirled, and a sudden tinge of coral upon cheek and lip relieved the black and ivory. “O-o-oh!” she murmured, and fell back a step. Señor John rose, bowing over his palette and brush. “This gentleman,” explained Father José, “is Señor John Gordon. He is staying on the other side of the river, at the rancho of Señor Allen. And he comes here to paint pictures.”