, she poured the whole from the cup down her throat. "It is
real Guadalcanal,"[29] said the old woman, when she had taken breath;
"and yet it has just a tiny smack of the gypsum. God comfort you, my
daughter, as you have comforted me; I am only afraid that the wine may
do me some mischief, seeing that I have not yet broken my fast."

[29] A favourite wine, grown on the shore of the Manzanares.

"No, mother; it will do nothing of the kind," returned Monipodio, "for
it is three years old at the least."

"May the Virgin grant that I find it so," replied the old woman. Then
turning to the girls, "See, children," she said "whether you have not a
few maravedis to buy the candles for my offerings of devotion. I came
away in so much haste, to bring the news of the basket of linen, that I
forgot my purse, and left it at home."

"Yes, Dame Pipota,"--such was the name of the old woman,--"I have some,"
replied Gananciosa; "here are two cuartos for you, and with one of them
I beg you to buy a candle for me, which you will offer in my name to the
Senor St. Michael, or if you can get two with the money, you may place
the other at the altar of the Senor St. Blas, for those two are my
patron-saints. I also wish to give one to the Senora Santa Lucia, for
whom I have a great devotion, on account of the eyes;[30] but I have no
more change to-day, so it must be put off till another time, when I
will square accounts with all."

[30] The Virgin Martyr, Santa Lucia, had her eyes burnt out of her head,
and is regarded, in the Catholic Church, as particularly powerful in the
cure of all diseases of the eyes. She is usually represented as bearing
her eyes on a salver, which she holds in her hand.

"And you will do well, daughter," replied the old woman. "Don't be
niggard, mind. It is a good thing to carry one's own candles before one
dies, and not to wait until they are offered by the heirs and executors
of our testament."

"You speak excellently, Mother Pipota," said Escalanta; and, putting her
hand into her pocket, she drew forth a cuarto, which she gave the old
woman, requesting her to buy two candles for her likewise, and offer
them to such saints as she considered the most useful and the most
likely to be grateful. With this old Pipota departed, saying,

"Enjoy yourselves, my dears, now while you have time, for old age will
come and you will then weep for the moments you may have lost in your
youth, as I do now. Commend me to God in