ten o'clock
When I want only to laugh at their dancing ! No , mamacita , when I love an American thou shalt have his ears for thy necklace . '' Thomas O. Larkin , United States Consul to California until the occupation left him without duties , had invited Monterey to meet the officers of the _ Savannah , Cyane , _ and _ Levant _ , and only Doña Modeste Castro had declined . At ten o'clock the sala of his large house on the rise of the hill was thronged with robed girls in every shade and device of white , sitting demurely behind the wide shoulders of coffee-coloured dowagers , also in white , and blazing with jewels . The young matrons were there , too , although they left the sala at intervals to visit the room set apart for the nurses and children ; no Montereña ever left her little ones at home . The old men and the caballeros wore the black coats and white trousers which Monterey fashion dictated for evening wear ; the hair of the younger men was braided with gay ribbons , and diamonds flashed in the lace of their ruffles . The sala was on the second floor ; the musicians sat on the corridor beyond the open windows and scraped their fiddles and twanged their guitars , awaiting the coming of the American officers .