“From what I have related, you can judge of the past, and from what I shall now relate, whether we have acted prudently, and are worthy of the interest you are disposed to take in our welfare. We lived happily according to our knowledge, neither eating or drinking what we considered to be impure, or indulging to excess beyond the body’s requirements for the gratification of taste. Our amusements were harmless and serving as a vivacious warmth for affectionate love. Those who visited us, like my father, were kindly entertained, and not one of the few has disdained to accept our friendship. The cause of my father’s departure was not that he loved us less, but the wish to induce his father and brother to come and see that he had succeeded in finding a people who were content to live without money, in freedom from want and envy, with the security of a common affection to make them realize a more perfect existence after the separation of vitality from the body. It was our misfortune to lose him when his advice was most needed, for we feel assured, if he had remained, he would have averted our calamities, for he claimed that our goodness and simplicity invited imposition, which we had not the diplomatic skill to avoid.” Mr. Welson, with a humorous twinkle of the eye, interrupted Cleorita, questioning whether her father explained the meaning of the word diplomatic. To which she replied with blushing trepidation, “My father gave his own version, but he was so chioptic (jocose) in his way, and inclined to speak disparagingly of his people’s sincerity, we did not press him to asservate the truth of his interpretation, for we could not wish to believe that civilization consisted in the art of successful deception. As you knew him well in former years, I will not withhold his exact definition. He said the word was a comprehensive cover for all the variations of lying evasion practiced in the adjustment of national encroachments, as a pretext for more extended impositions. The immediate cause of our exile was the reappearance of a tribe of Indians who had been expelled by the Aurancanians for their atrocious acts. The return of the Abacknas (marauders) was announced by their sack of the settlement of Guaspe. When pursued by an avenging party they fled to the mountains. Their leader, named O’Grady, a sailor who had escaped from a vessel in the straits of Magellan, betrayed them to the vengeance of their pursuers, so that few escaped. By this act of treachery he gained admittance into Aurancania for the introduction of a destructive cause more insidious in its perfidy.