canon. But my idolized son will comprehend me and he won't put his hands
to his ears as you are doing now. Woe is me! Poor Jacinto knows that
I would die for him, and that I would purchase his happiness at the
sacrifice of my life. Darling child of my soul! To be so deserving and
to be forever doomed to mediocrity, to a humble station, for--don't get
indignant, uncle--no matter what airs we put on, you will always be the
son of Uncle Tinieblas, the sacristan of San Bernardo, and I shall
never be any thing more than the daughter of Ildefonso Tinieblas, your
brother, who used to sell crockery, and my son will be the grandson of
the Tinieblas--for obscure we were born, and we shall never emerge from
our obscurity, nor own a piece of land of which we can say, 'This is
mine'; nor shall I ever plunge my arms up to the elbows in a sack of
wheat threshed and winnowed on our own threshing-floor--all because of
your cowardice, your folly, your soft-heartedness."

"But--but, niece!"

The canon's voice rose higher every time he repeated this phrase, and,
with his hands to his ears, he shook his head from side to side with
a look of mingled grief and desperation. The shrill complaint of Maria
Remedios grew constantly shriller, and pierced the brain of the unhappy
and now dazed priest like an arrow. But all at once the woman's face
became transformed; her plaintive wail was changed to a hard, shrill
scream; she turned pale, her lips trembled, she clenched her hands,
a few locks of her disordered hair fell over her forehead, her eyes
glittered, dried by the heat of the anger that glowed in her breast; she
rose from her seat and, not like a woman, but like a harpy, cried:

"I am going away from here! I am going away from here with my son! We
will go to Madrid; I don't want my son to fret himself to death in
this miserable town! I am tired now of seeing that my son, under the
protection of the cassock, neither is nor ever will be any thing. Do you
hear, my reverend uncle? My son and I are going away! You will never see
us again--never!"

Don Inocencio had clasped his hands and was receiving the thunderbolts
of his niece's wrath with the consternation of a criminal whom the
presence of the executioner has deprived of his last hope.

"In Heaven's name, Remedios," he murmured, in a pained voice; "in the
name of the Holy Virgin----"

These fits of range of his niece, who was usually so meek, were as
violent as they were rare, and five