then her face would take on a very
strange expression of pain.

On these merry days she would treat her cousin with unaccustomed
amiability as though she were anxious to compensate him for the petty
disdain that she had shown him in the days gone by.

Don Alfonso stole three or four more kisses, each time receiving an
energetic protest on the girl's part, and finally the formal threat of
telling her mother. Nevertheless, these were not the days when she was
sad and down-spirited.

One evening Julia, Miguel, Maximina, and Don Alfonso formed a little
group[19] in the _la brigadiera's_ library. Julia was very happy.
Suddenly Saavedra said:--

"See here, Julita, haven't you a sweetheart?"

The girl grew as red as a cherry; then pale. Miguel, seeing her
embarrassment, and being absolutely at sea as to the reason for it,
hastened to her aid, saying:--

"Julia has not as yet decided upon any man; her character is too
fickle...."

"What do you know about it!" interrupted the girl in a fury of passion,
casting a look of hatred upon him.

"My dear girl, I thought...."

"Please talk about what you know. You haven't the slightest idea what is
going on in my mind," she rejoined, with a severe intonation; and
turning to her cousin, and looking him straight in the face, she
added:--

"And supposing I had, what of it?"

"Nothing," replied Don Alfonso, calmly. "How glad I should be if you had
one worthy of you; but it seems to me that would not be very easy,
considering what a nice girl you are, little coz!"

"Oh yes, I am an angel!" exclaimed the girl, in a sarcastic tone.

She remained a moment lost in thought, then, jumping up, left the room.

Miguel had been surprised by his sister's answer, not so much at the
significance of her words as at the violent and scornful tone which till
that time she had never used toward him. And stopping to think a moment,
he was not slow to fathom what was passing through the girl's mind.

She came back again after a few moments, with smiling face, the same as
before, and began to enliven the _tertulia_ with her witticisms. She did
not sit down, but kept moving about the room with the lithe grace and
liveliness characteristic of her.

Miguel noticed, however, that there was too much excitement underneath
her gayety: she went rapidly from one subject to another; she asked
questions and answered them herself, and laughed boisterously at the
slightest excuse. She sat down at the pia