.... I turned around, and without looking at any one, I
crossed the church again, and came out...."

Miguel succeeded in calming her; he made the servant bring her a cup of
lime juice, and promised that he would not let her go to church again
alone.

After a while, when she was entirely recovered, he asked her a question
in a whisper, which she, dropping her eyes, answered in the negative.
Then with a smiling face he whispered a few words in her ear.... The
young wife, when she heard them, trembled, fastened her eyes on him with
an anxious expression for a moment, and, confused and blushing, threw
herself into his arms, murmuring:--

"Oh, don't deceive me! Don't deceive me, for Heaven's sake!"

VIII.

From this day forth the serenity and sweetness which we have said was
characteristic of Maximina's face began to gain a more concentrated,
more delicate aspect, like the mystic expression of saints assured of
heaven. She did not speak of the occurrence with her husband again, and
when he alluded to it, she dropped her smiling eyes, and her face
flushed a little.

But Miguel understood perfectly that she was thinking of nothing else;
that the bliss of coming maternity filled her whole nature, her life,
and her being. He also was delighted, not so much at the new trust with
which nature was going to honor him, as at the spectacle of his wife's
happiness, and in secretly watching in her eyes, and in all her
movements, the adorable mystery that was taking place in her soul.

When they walked along the street, he noticed that she cast quick and
anxious glances at the linen shops, where baby-caps and children's
wardrobes were on exhibition. And divining that she would enjoy
stopping, he would make some excuse for asking the price of shirts or
handkerchiefs, and let her amuse herself looking at infant wardrobes.

"Do you know," she would say afterwards, "do you know how much baby
shirts cost a dozen?"

"No," he would answer, laughing.

"I do, though!"

One day, as he was passing by the chamber door into the library, he
caught sight of her looking into the wardrobe mirror; and he was
surprised, because no woman was ever freer from vanity and coquetry than
she; but his surprise was changed into amusement when he saw that she
was looking at her profile to see whether her form had changed. But lest
he should embarrass her he went out on his tiptoes.

Another day, as they were walking in the neighborhood of the