"How dost thou feel?"

"Well; but I shall be lonely. Do not stay long at the church, no?
How glad I am that Chonita came in time for the christening! What a
beautiful _comadre_ she will be! I have just seen her. Ay, poor Diego!
he will fall in love with her; and what then?"

"It would have been better had she come too late, I think. To avoid
asking Diego to stand for my first child was impossible, for he is the
man of men to me. To avoid asking Doña Chonita was equally impossible,
I suppose, and it will be painful for both. He serenaded her last
night, not knowing who she was, but having seen her at her grating; he
only returned yesterday. I hope she plants no thorns in his heart."

"Perhaps they will marry and bind the wounds," suggested the woman.

"An Estenega and an Iturbi y Moncada will not marry. He might forget,
for he is passionate and of a nature to break down barriers when a
wish is dear; but she has all the wrongs of all the Iturbi y Moncadas
on her white shoulders, and all their pride in the carriage of her
head; to say nothing of that brother whom she adores. She learned this
morning that it was Diego's determined opposition that kept Reinaldo
out of the Departmental Junta, and meets him in no tender frame of
mind----"

Doña Martina raised her hand. Chonita stood in the door-way. She was
quite beautiful enough to plant thorns where she listed. Her tall
supple figure was clothed in white, and over her gold hair--lurid and
brilliant, but without a tinge of red--she wore a white lace mantilla.
Her straight narrow brows and heavy lashes were black; but her skin