A young man who had shone in Madrid society, who had been the
editor-in-chief of a newspaper and within a hair's breath of being
deputy, could not help feeling some mortification in passing through a
public examination for a place worth only twelve or fourteen thousand
reals. He devoted himself ardently to the study of administrative law
with such zeal that he hardly went out of the house, except a little
while in the evening to rest his brain.

The very little money that they had left he spent with exceeding care so
that it might hold out until the time of the competition, which was to
be held after the summer, toward October or November.

Maximina in this respect was a model. Not only did she spend nothing on
her person, for she had clothes enough, but also in the household
expenses she performed prodigies of skill to reduce them to the smallest
terms. Miguel was grieved, and almost shed tears secretly when he saw
her making soap herself because it would be a few centimos cheaper than
at the shop, and many times taking charge of the kitchen while Juana was
gone to a distant store where potatoes were a real cheaper, and ironing
the nicer linen herself, etc.

But she seemed happy; perhaps happier than when they were in the midst
of opulence. The luxuriance of their apartment on the Plaza de Santa Ana
had a certain depressing influence upon her. As she never dusted or
arranged the furniture herself, they seemed to her hardly to be hers.
Now everything was the opposite; she had put them in their places after
serious perplexities; she dusted them every day, she swept and brushed
the carpet, she polished with stag-horn powder all the metal
arrangements, she kept the window in her husband's room carefully
washed; in fact, she took entire charge of all the details of the
household.

It was for Miguel a pleasure not free from melancholy to see her
mornings, with a silk handkerchief wrapped around her head in the
Biscaian manner and in a woollen apron, gracefully waving the feather
duster and lightly humming some sentimental _zorcico_ of her country.

But Maximina understood to the last detail the economy that referred to
herself. This from time to time caused Miguel deep pain. Without his
knowing it she had given up her chocolate in the afternoon. When he
discovered it he became furious.

"Who would ever have thought of it! The idea of cutting down your food
when you are nursing a baby! It is senseless and almost a sin!