rage she tore out his false teeth,
and left him, sometimes for days, horribly disfigured.

When they were well settled in Manila, Rodoreda received orders to
engrave on a plate of black marble:

"Dr. De Espadana,
Specialist in All Kinds of Diseases."

"Do you wish me to be put in prison?" asked Don Tiburcio in terror.

"I wish people to call you doctor and me doctora," said Dona Victorina,
"but it must be understood that you treat only very rare cases."

The senora signed her own name, Victorina de los Reyes de de
Espadana. Neither the engraver of her visiting cards nor her husband
could make her renounce that second "de."

"If I use only one 'de,' people will think you haven't any,
imbecile!" she said to Don Tiburcio.

Then the number of gewgaws grew, the layer of rice powder was
thickened, the ribbons and laces were piled higher, and Dona Victorina
regarded with more and more disdain her poor compatriots who had not
had the fortune to marry husbands of so high estate as her own.

All this sublimity, however, did not prevent her being each day
older and more ridiculous. Every time Captain Tiago was with her, and
remembered that she had once really inspired him with love, he sent a
peso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving. But he had much respect
for Don Tiburcio, because of his title of specialist, and listened
attentively to the rare sentences the doctor's impediment of speech
let him pronounce. For this reason and because the doctor did not
lavish his visits on people at large he had chosen him to treat Maria.

As to young Linares, Dona Victorina, wishing a steward from the
peninsula, her husband remembered a cousin of his, a law student at
Madrid, who was considered the most astute of the family. They sent
for him, and the young man had just arrived.

Father Salvi entered while Don Santiago and his guests were at the
second breakfast. They talked of Maria Clara, who was sleeping;
they talked of the journey, and Dona Victorina exclaimed loudly
at the costumes of the provincials, their houses of nipa, and
their bamboo bridges. She did not omit to inform the curate of
her friendly relations with the "Segundo Cabo," with this alcalde,
with that councillor, all people of distinction, who had for her the
greatest consideration.

"If you had come two days earlier, Dona Victorina," said Captain
Tiago, profiting by a slight pause in the lady's brilliant loquacity,
"you would have found His Excellency