diabolical cruelty overspread the handsome countenance
of Dolores; and when the laggart fish-woman had reached the nearer end
of the bridge, near the customs office, the girl burst into an
insolent, ridiculing laugh. She touched _agueela_ Picores on the arm:

"Look, granny, late as usual. And what can you expect from a mess of
lazy-bones like that!"

Rosario grew pale as death, and it was with a sigh of faintness and
fatigue that she set her basket on the ground. She looked at Dolores,
with what hatred her exhaustion could let gather in her eyes. Then she
sat down on the burden she had been carrying. For a second the two
enemies surveyed each other from head to foot, their year-long
resentment boiling up within them.

Dolores wiped her nose with an arm, snorting, as at a pinch of snuff.
"Yes, I'd sit down, if I were you, mud-puppy. God, when Tonet was taking
a wife, why didn't he get a woman!" Rosario did her best to parry the
flood of insults: Sit down? Why not sit down--since God had given her
something to sit on and she had a place to put it! Besides, an honest
woman need not be afraid to be seen walking. She couldn't hire a
coach-in-four--by playing fast and loose with her husband! "And it's me
you're talking to!" exclaimed Dolores, stepping forward with blood in
her eyes. But she did not go far. For her "Granny's" clawed talons were
upon her shoulder, pulling her back. "Into the cart with you! Your fish
is weighed! No public scenes to-day! It's late, and they want their
orders up in the Market! Of all the loving pairs of sisters!..." And
the old Tartar was now in front of Dolores, thrusting the girl back
toward the _tartana_ with bumps from her huge stomach. But the beauty's
lips were trembling white with emotion, though she obeyed; but with one
foot on the step of the cart, she hurled back one parting shot:

"_Tu, ya se vorem, Rosario!_"

Have it out later? Of course they would. You say when, Dolores! And
Rosario, her arms really so weak and flaccid, laid hold on a heavy
basket in an impulse of rage and tossed it like a pebble on to the
scales.

The clouds from the night's storm were burning off with the advent of
the sun, which was making a triumphant entrance upon the day, rolling
its molten gold horizontally over the streets, gilding the puddles, and
painting the house fronts and window-panes with the reddening brilliancy
of a conflagration. The town was now quite awake. The street-cars were
crowded wit