is mind.

"Don't you have any longing for Pasajes?" Saavedra was asking.

"A little, yes, sir; but here I am very happy."

"How long is it since you were married?"

"It will be nine months on the fourth."

Don Alfonso said nothing for several moments and seemed to be thinking;
then he said sadly:--

"How many times I have passed by Pasajes and seen those cottages
stretching along the shore of the bay, without ever having thought of
stopping there!"

"You have not lost much; everybody says it is a very ugly village;
except the church, which is rather fine, Don Joaquin's house, Arrequi's,
and a few in the Ancho, there is nothing much to see."

"Now, of course, it can't amount to anything ... but before...."

Maximina looked at him in surprise.

"It was formerly not as good as now; the best houses were built about
five or six years ago."

"Before, it was worth infinitely more, because you were there."

"Mercy! what difference did it make whether I were there or not?"
exclaimed Maximina, innocently.

"Because here or there, or wherever you happened to be," replied the
_caballero_, piqued by the young matron's ingenuous indifference, so
absolutely free from coquetry, "you would always be something so
precious as to attract every one's attention. And what makes you more
precious still, and more worthy of admiration, is that you have not the
remotest idea of your value: you are a beautiful, fresh, fragrant,
aromatic flower, which is absolutely unconscious of itself...."

Maximina had not heard Don Alfonso's last words, perceiving that her
husband had just given Filomena an intense look--we cannot tell what she
saw in it--that congealed her with terror: she grew as pale as wax, and
suddenly conceiving an idea that she thought might be her salvation, she
got up without replying to Saavedra, and going straight to Filomena, she
said in a hoarse voice, trying to smile:--

"Filomena, do you want to see that edging that I was speaking about
yesterday?"

Miguel and Filomena looked up in amazement. Miguel was more ashamed than
surprised.

"With great pleasure, dear," said the young woman.

Maximina started to go toward the door. Filomena paused a moment to give
a retort to Rivera's last jest.

"Are you coming or not?" asked the young wife, halting in the middle of
the parlor, and giving her a look barbed with hatred.

Miguel had never seen in his wife's eyes such an expression, nor
imagined that her voice coul