taking to mamma?”

“Why, certainly;” she replied; “it is from the young ladies at General Romera’s. Don’t you know them?”

“Of course I do. General Romera was a friend of papa’s. We have not seen them for a long time.”{53}

{53}

“Doña Pascuala, the elder, has been sick. She had something they call tonsilitis. Ah, she was very ill!”

“And is she better now?” asked Rogelio, for the sake of saying something, for anxiety for Doña Pascuala’s tonsils would never have deprived him of his sleep.

“She is entirely well now. If she was not well I should not have left her.”

“Were you—living there?” (Rogelio did not venture to say at service.)

“Yes, Señor, ever since I came from the old land.”

“Ah, you are a Galician, then?”

“There is no reason why I should be ashamed of it.”

“Nor I either, caramba!”

“No, Señor, no indeed. It is a very good country, better than Madrid or than any other place in the world.”

Rogelio smiled, pleased with the girl’s patriotism, and beginning to feel{54} at home with her, for she seemed to him incapable of ridiculing any one. They were now near the house; Martin, who had gone on in advance, stopped his hack, a task which was easier than to make him start, and at the door stood Doña Aurora, making signs to her son.{55}

{54}

{55}

V.

“Mamma, here is some one with a love-letter for you.”

Mamma

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