“Where’s Luis?” she asked Mrs. Silva; and then, as her eye fell on Brenda, she cried, “Why, here’s the young leddy I told you about, that helped me pick up me money in the ’bus.” And then she laughed so heartily that her fat shoulders shook; and all the others, even the sad Mrs. Silva, and the dignified Miss South, smiled as if they too would have liked the power to laugh in that hearty fashion.
Mrs. Moriarty, although she certainly would have made no pretensions to a knowledge of etiquette, was too polite to ask why all these strangers were sitting in Mrs. Silva’s kitchen, and so, to break the silence which again settled on them after that hearty laugh of hers, she repeated,—
“Where’s Luis?”
“Oh, he’s off; I don’t know where. He’s bought a horse, and he can travel pretty far. He’s selling peaches now.”
At the word “Luis” Brenda had looked up in surprise. “Is your husband Miguel Silva?”
“No, indeed,” said Mrs. Silva.
“No, indeed,” repeated Mrs. Moriarty, adding, “Do you know Miguel?”
“Why, no,” said Brenda; “that is, I have seen him,—why, this is his picture,” she concluded, pointing to the print of the man and the little boy.
“That!” and Mrs. Silva looked at her in surprise. “Why, that is Luis, and my poor little Luis, too. We named him for his father.”
