"How exceedingly suitable it will be to me! And those delicious chintzes and dimities for our bedrooms! Did you ever conceive of things so beautiful ?" Antonia was quite ready to echo her delight.

Housekeeping and homemaking, in all its ways, was her lovable talent.

It was really Antonia who saw all the plans and the desires of the Senora thoroughly carried out.

It was her clever fingers and natural taste which gave to every room that air of comfort and refinement which all felt and admired, but which seemed to elude their power to imitate.
On the fourth of July the doctor and his family ate together their first dinner in their renovated home.

The day was one that he never forgot, and he was glad to link it with a domestic occurrence so happy and so fortunate.
Sometimes silently, sometimes with a few words to his boys, he had always, on this festival, drank his glass of fine Xeres to the honor and glory of the land he loved.