sfied,
dona Bernarda, that we should be related through our children. I'm only
sorry that don Ramon isn't here to see it all."

And that was true. The one thing lacking to the millionaire's perfect
joy was that he would never have the chance to treat the tall, imposing
Don Ramon on equal terms for once,--the crowning triumph of a self-made
man.

Dona Bernarda, too, saw in this union the realization of her fondest
dreams: money joined to power; the millions of a business, whose
marvelous successes seemed like deliberate tricks of Chance, coming to
revivify with their sap of gold the Brull family tree, which was showing
the signs of age and long years of struggle!

Spring had come on apace. Some afternoons dona Bernarda would take "the
children" to her own orchards or to the wealthy holdings of don Matias.
It was a sight worth seeing--the kindly shrewdness with which she
chaperoned the young couple, shouting with shocked alarm if they
disappeared behind the orange-trees for a moment or two in their
frolics.

"That Rafael of ours," she would say to don Andres, mimicking the long
face he used to put on when bringing up her troubles with her husband,
"what a rascal he is! I'll bet he's got both arms around her by this
time!"

"Let 'em alone, let 'em alone, dona Bernarda! The deeper in he gets with
this one, the less likely he'll be to go back to the other."

Back to her?... There was no fear of that. It was enough to watch Rafael
picking flowers and weaving them into the girl's hair while she
pretended to fight him off, blushing like a rose, and quite moved at
such homage.

"Now be good, Rafaelito," Remedios would murmur in a sort of entreating
bleat, "don't touch me; don't be so bold."

But her emotion would so betray her that you could see the thing she
most wanted in the world was for Rafael to place upon her body once
again those hands that made her tingle from the tips of her toes to the
roots of her hair. She resisted only because such was the duty of a
well-educated Christian girl. Like a young she-goat she would dash off
with graceful, tripping bounds between the rows of orange-trees, and _su
senoria_, the member from Alcira, would give chase with all his might,
his nostrils quivering and his eyes ablaze.

"Let's see if he can catch you!" the mother would call, with a laugh.
"Run and let him try to catch you!"

Don Andres would roll up his wrinkled face into the smile of an old
faun. Such play made him