ributed to
giving her lessons.

Sisa had been happy enough not to understand. The forehead of the
shrew unknotted a bit, and a look of satisfaction animated her face.

"Tell this woman to sing!" she said to the orderly. "She doesn't
understand; she doesn't know Spanish!"

The orderly spoke to Sisa, and she began at once the "Night Song."

At first Dona Consolacion listened with a mocking smile, but little
by little it left her lips. She became attentive, then serious. Her
dry and withered heart received the rain. "The sadness, the cold,
the dew come down from the sky in the mantle of the night," seemed
to fall upon her heart; she understood "the flower, full of vanity,
and prodigal with its splendors in the sun, now, at the fall of day,
withered and stained, repentant and disillusioned, trying to raise
its poor petals toward heaven, begging a shade to hide it from the
mockery of the sun, who had seen it in its pomp, and was laughing at
the impotence of its pride; begging also a drop of dew to be let fall
upon it."

"No! Stop singing!" she cried in perfect Tagal. "Stop! These verses
bore me!"

Sisa stopped. The orderly thought: "Ah, she knows the Tagal!" And he
regarded his mistress with admiration.

She saw she had betrayed herself, became ashamed, and shame in her
unfeminine nature meant rage. She showed the door to the imprudent
orderly, and shut it behind him with a blow. Then she took several
turns around the room, wringing the whip in her nervous hands. At last,
planting herself before Sisa, she said to her in Spanish: "Dance!"

Sisa did not move.

"Dance! Dance!" she repeated in a threatening voice. The poor thing
looked at her with vacant eyes. The vixen took hold of one of her
arms and then the other, raising them and swaying them about. It was
of no use. Sisa did not understand.

In vain Dona Consolacion began to leap about, making signs for Sisa to
imitate her. In the distance a band was playing a slow and majestic
march; but the creature leaped furiously to another measure, beating
within herself. Sisa looked on, motionless. A faint curiosity rose
in her eyes, a feeble smile moved her pale lips; the alfereza's dance
pleased her.

The dancer stopped, as if ashamed, and raised the terrible whip,
well known to thieves and soldiers.

"Now," said she, "it's your turn! Dance!" And she began to give light
taps to the bare feet of bewildered Sisa, whose face contracted with
pain; the poor thing tried