Boys Are Always Inarticulate Where Their Deepest Feelings Are Concerned; However Much They May Desire It They Cannot Express Kind And Sympathetic Feelings.

In a halting way they may sometimes say a word of that nature to another boy, or pal, but before a girl, however much she may move their compassion, they remain dumb.

I remember, when my age was about nine, the case of a quarrel about some trivial matter I once had with my closest friend, a boy of my own age who, with his people, used to come yearly on a month's visit to us from Buenos Ayres. For three whole days we spoke not a word and took no notice of each other, whereas before we had been inseparable. Then he all at once came up to me and holding out his hand said, "Let's be friends." I seized the proffered hand, and was more grateful to him than I have ever felt towards any one since, just because by approaching me first I was spared the agony of having to say those three words to him. Now that boy - that is to say, the material part of him - is but a handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest; but I can believe that if the other still living part should by chance be in this room now, peeping over my shoulder to see what I am writing, he would burst into as hearty a laugh as a ghost is capable of at this ancient memory, and say to himself that it took him all his courage to speak those three simple words.

And so it came about that I said no gentle word to white-faced Anjelita, and in due time she vanished out of my life with all that queer tribe of hers, the bloody uncle included, to leave an enduring image in my mind which has never quite lost a certain disturbing effect.

CHAPTER X

OUR NEAREST ENGLISH NEIGHBOUR

Casa Antigua, our nearest English neighbour's house - Old Lombardy poplars - Cardoon thistle or wild artichoke - Mr. Royd, an English sheep-farmer - Making sheep's-milk cheeses under difficulties - Mr. Royd's native wife - The negro servants - The two daughters: a striking contrast - The white blue-eyed child and her dusky playmate - A happy family - Our visits to Casa Antigua - Gorgeous dinners - Estanislao and his love of wild life - The Royds' return visits - A homemade carriage - The gaucho's primitive conveyance - The happy home broken up.

One of the most important estancias in our neighbourhood, at all events to us, was called Casa Antigua, and that it was an ancient dwelling-place in that district appeared likely enough, since the trees were the largest and had an appearance of extreme age. It must, however, be remembered that in speaking of ancient things on the pampas we mean things a century or two old, not many hundreds or thousands of years as in Europe. Three centuries in that part of South America takes us back to prehistoric times.

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