--but how tall you are! And with a beard. Why, it seems only
yesterday that I held you in my lap. And now you are a man, a grown-up
man. Well, well! How the years pass! This is my daughter Rosario."

As she said this they reached the parlor on the ground floor, which
was generally used as a reception-room, and Dona Perfecta presented her
daughter to Pepe.

Rosario was a girl of delicate and fragile appearance, that revealed
a tendency to pensive melancholy. In her delicate and pure countenance
there was something of the soft, pearly pallor which most novelists
attribute to their heroines, and without which sentimental varnish it
appears that no Enriquieta or Julia can be interesting. But what chiefly
distinguished Rosario was that her face expressed so much sweetness and
modesty that the absence of the perfections it lacked was not observed.
This is not to say that she was plain; but, on the other hand, it is
true that it would be an exaggeration to call her beautiful in the
strictest meaning of the word. The real beauty of Dona Perfecta's
daughter consisted in a species of transparency, different from that
of pearl, alabaster, marble, or any of the other substances used in
descriptions of the human countenance; a species of transparency through
which the inmost depths of her soul were clearly visible; depths not
cavernous and gloomy, like those of the sea, but like those of a clear
and placid river. But the material was wanting there for a complete
personality. The channel was wanting, the banks were wanting. The vast
wealth of her spirit overflowed, threatening to wash away the narrow
borders. When her cousin saluted her she blushed crimson, and uttered
only a few unintelligible words.

"You must be fainting with hunger," said Dona Perfecta to her nephew.
"You shall have your breakfast at once."

"With your permission," responded the traveller, "I will first go and
get rid of the dust of the journey."

"That is a sensible idea," said the senora. "Rosario, take your cousin
to the room that we have prepared for him. Don't delay, nephew. I am
going to give the necessary orders."

Rosario took her cousin to a handsome apartment situated on the ground
floor. The moment he entered it Pepe recognized in all the details of
the room the diligent and loving hand of a woman. All was arranged
with perfect taste, and the purity and freshness of everything in this
charming nest invited to repose. The guest observed minute det