Here Don Pancho chuckled to himself, for he had a great deal of pride in his handsome son and enjoyed the gossip of his amours. José had learned to be a fair performer on the fiddle and the guitar, and would sit by night with a few other free lances of his own age under the eaves of some straw hut watching the stars come out in the beautiful crisp, evening air and singing melancholy love songs. Most of the girls succumbed to his advances at once, but there was one who rejected them with affected scorn and she, of course, was the one he most desired. Consequently he began to hedge at his father’s suggestion.