r
in her hair; under the fine grape-vines she would sit in the evening and
play on her guitar. His wages would give her comfort and buy her pretty
simple dresses. And then every one would see her beauty, and when she
went to mass, or with himself and Jovita to the Prado or the Paseo de
la Virgen del Puerto, people would look at her and tell each other
how pretty she was, and all this would end in time in a good marriage
perhaps. And she would be loved by some nice fellow, and have a home
of her own, and be as happy as the day was long. There was only
one obstacle in the way of this excellent plan; it was only a small
obstacle, but--it was Pepita herself! Singularly enough, Pepita had a
fixed antipathy to marriage. She had early announced her intention of
remaining unmarried, and those young men who in her native village
had desired to make love to her had been treated with disapproval
and disdain. Knowing as little of love as a young bird unfledged, her
coldness was full of innocent cruelty. She made no effort to soften any
situation. She was willing to dance and laugh and sing, but when she
found herself confronting lover-like tremors and emotion, she was
unsparing candor itself.

"Why should I listen to you?" she had said more than once. "I do not
love you. You do not please me. When you wish to marry me, I hate you.
Go away, and speak to some one else."

"I will never marry any one," she said to Jose. "I will stay with you
and be happy. Girls who marry grow ugly and are wretched. Their husbands
do not love them after they are married. They must work and slave and
take care of the house and the children. Look at Tessa! Her husband used
to be wild about her. She could make him pale with misery if she turned
away from him; he used to follow her about everywhere. Now he makes eyes
at Juanita, and beats Tessa if she complains. And don't we both remember
how it was with our mother? I will never love any one, and never be
married. Let them love me if they are so stupid, but I will be left
alone. I care nothing for any of them."

The truth is that Jose knew it was what she remembered of her mother's
unhappiness and what Jovita had told her, which was the foundation of
all this. Did he not remember it himself, and remember, with a shudder,
those first miserable years of their childhood--the great, beautiful,
wretched eyes of their mother, their gay, handsome father, and his
careless cruelty and frequent brutality? Had not