I'm so glad you've come, for I told mother I was going to ask you about them." "Do you think they have no money?" Suydam asked. "I'm afraid it's all gone," she answered. "And they have no friends at all so far as we know." "You say they are Cubans?" "I think they are. Their name is De los Rios--Senora de los Rios, I heard the daughter call her mother when she asked the postman about a letter." "If it wasn't so late," said the young man, looking at his watch, "I would go to the Spanish Consulate. But it's nearly six now, and the consulate is certain to be closed. If there is any reason to think that they are actually suffering for want of food, can't you find some feminine reason for intruding on them." "I'm afraid we can't," she answered. "We did try yesterday morning. When we found that the daughter didn't go out for something to cook, we misdoubted they might be hungry, and so we talked it over and over, and did our best to hit on some way of helping them. At last mother had an idea, and she made a sort of Spanish stew--what they call an _olla podrida_, you know. She got the receipt out of the cook-book, and she took it up and knocked at the door. They asked who it was, and they didn't open the door but a little. Mother told the daughter that she had been trying to make a Spanish dish, and she didn't know as she'd got it right, and so she'd come up to ask them as a favor if they wouldn't taste it, and tell her if it was all right. You see that was mother's idea. She thought she might get them to eat it that way, and save their pride. But it wouldn't do. The daughter said that she was sorry, but she couldn't taste it then, she couldn't, nor her mother either. They had no appetite then, and so they couldn't judge of the _olla podrida_. She said they had just been cooking some chops and steaks." "Chops and steaks?" echoed Suydam. "That's what she said," the girl continued. "But of course that was only her excuse for refusing. That was her way of impressing on mother that they didn't need anything. So mother had to give it up, and bring the stew down-stairs again. Mother doesn't feel so badly about them, however, because they had been cooking something yesterday. She smelt fish--yesterday was Friday, you know." "I know," repeated the young man; "but still I--" Just then the shrill whistle of the postman was heard, and a sharp ring at the bell. The girl jumped up, and went to the door. As she opened it there came in the faint melody of distant sleigh-bells, and the roar of the street already muffled by the snow. She returned to the parlor with a long blue envelope in her hand. "Here is the letter at last," she said. "What letter?" asked Suydam. "The letter the old ladies are waiting for," she answered, handing it to him. He held it up nearer the single gas-jet of the parlor and read the address aloud, "'Marquisa de los Rios,' and it's registered."