Floracita had paused with her thread half drawn through her work, and
was looking earnestly at the troubled countenance of their friend.
"Madame," exclaimed she, "something has happened. What is it?"

"I will tell you," said Madame, "if you will promise not to scream
or faint, and will try to keep your wits collected, so as to help me
think what is best to be done."

They promised; and, watching her countenance with an expression of
wonder and anxiety, they waited to hear what she had to communicate.
"My dear children," said she, "I have heard something that will
distress you very much. Something neither you nor I ever suspected.
Your mother was a slave."

"_Our_ mother a slave!" exclaimed Rosa, coloring vehemently. "_Whose_
slave could she be, when she was Papasito's wife, and he loved her so?
It is impossible, Madame."

"Your father bought her when she was very young, my dear; but I know
very well that no wife was ever loved better than she was."

"But she always lived with her own father till she married papa," said
Floracita. "How then _could_ she be his slave?"

"Her father got into trouble about money, my dear; and he sold her."

"Our Grandpapa Gonsalez sold his daughter!" exclaimed Rosa. "How
incredible! Dear friend, I wonder you can believe such things."

"The world is full of strange things, my child,--stranger than