Nor
were these confidences confined to only one nationality. "I always
thought you Spanish gentlemen were very dark, and wore long
mustaches and a cloak," said pretty little Miss Walker, gazing
frankly into the smooth round face of the eldest Pacheco--"why, you
are as fair as I am," "Eaf I tink that, I am for ever mizzarable,"
he replied, with grave melancholy. In the dead silence that
followed he was enabled to make his decorous point. "Because I
shall not ezeape ze fate of Narcissus." Mr. Buchanan, with the
unrestrained and irresponsible enjoyment of a traveler, entered
fully into the spirit of the scene. He even found words of praise
for Aladdin, whose extravagance had at first seemed to him almost
impious. "Eh, but I'm not prepared to say he is a fool, either,"
he remarked to his friend the San Francisco banker. "Those who try
to pick him up for one," returned the banker, "will find themselves
mistaken. His is the prodigality that loosens others' purse-
strings besides his own, Everybody contents himself with
criticising his way of spending money, but is ready to follow his
way of making it."
The dinner was more formal, and when the mistress of the house,
massive in black silk, velvet and gold embroidery, moved like a
pageant to the head of her table, where she remained like a
sacerdotal effigy, not even the presence of the practical Scotchman
at her side could remove the prevailing sense of restraint. For a
while the conversation of the relatives might have been brought
with them in their antique vehicles of fifty years ago, so faded,
so worn, and so springless it was.
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