punish her, but had not succeeded. The old lady looked very sad.
Ah, here is Doña Ysabel now!"

"How lovely she is!" said Doña Modeste. "I think--What! what!--"

"Dios de mi Alma!" exclaimed Pio Pico, "where did she get those pearls?"

The crowd near the door had parted, and Ysabel entered on the arm of her
uncle. Don Antonio's form was bent, and she looked taller by contrast.
His thin sharp profile was outlined against her white neck, bared for
the first time to the eyes of Monterey. Her shawl had just been laid
aside, and he was near-sighted and did not notice the pearls.

She had sewn them all over the front of her white silk gown. She had
wound them in the black coils of her hair. They wreathed her neck and
roped her arms. Never had she looked so beautiful. Her great green eyes
were as radiant as spring. Her lips were redder than blood. A pink flame
burned in her oval cheeks. Her head moved like a Californian lily on its
stalk. No Montereño would ever forget her.

"El Son!" cried the young men, with one accord. Her magnificent beauty
extinguished every other woman in the room. She must not hide her light
in the contradanza. She must madden all eyes at once.

Ysabel bent her head and glided to the middle of the room. The other
women moved back, their white gowns like a snowbank against the garish
walls. The thin sweet music of the instruments rose above the boom of
the tide. Ysabel lifted her dress with curving arms, displaying arched
feet clad in flesh-coloured stockings and white slippers, and danced El
Son.