CHAPTER VIII
Preparing for the Ball
Nan was quickly made to feel that she had done no small thing in offending the mothers of Las Rubertas. They took it as a personal affront that she had made it possible for Rosario Richards to so eclipse their own progeny upon the one important occasion of the school year.
Her borrowing neighbors ceased their demands and cast dark looks at her end of the Montejo dobe as they passed in the street.
The little Montejos no longer played in her dooryard, and Señor Epiphanio forgot to say "muchas gracias, senorita," when he returned the rope which he took each day to choke his pig, that it might not become too spirited and jump out of its pen.
Then one day Maria Torres cried "Gringo" as she passed the door, and spat contemptuously.
The Mexican who brought her firewood stole it again at night, and when Nan's saddle-
