me, for I am going to get dressed."

And he would make believe shut the door; but she would respond with such
beseeching eyes:--

"For Heaven's sake, don't drive me out of your room, Miguel," that he
could not help smiling, and, taking her by the hand, he would put her
down in a chair as though she were a child, saying:--

"Very well; but don't you move from there."

When he was away from home, he was never for a single instant absent
from her thoughts; when she had to talk with the maid-servants, she
would always manage to refer to him directly or indirectly. If she gave
orders to have the mirrors washed, it was so that _he_ might not notice
that they were soiled; if she consulted her cook book, it was to learn
how to make some dish that _he_ liked; the clothes that she was mending
were _his_, and _his_ was the chain that she cleaned with powder, and
the silk handkerchief which she sent her maid to wash, and the shirts
which she sent out to be done up, because she did not feel that she was
able to rival the laundryman, though her will was good.

The only little clouds that crossed the horizon of her happiness was her
husband's unreasonable fretfulness, which seemed to increase. Sometimes
she would say, with tears in her eyes:--

"I was worried about to-morrow, because for the last five days you have
been scolding me!"

Miguel, grieved as always to see her weep, fondled her, and would return
to his usual serenity and content.

Nevertheless, there was one cloud larger and blacker than the others,
and the cause of it was the fact that on the second floor of the same
house lived the widowed Countess de Losilla with her two daughters of
twenty-three and twenty-four years old, six and seven years older
respectively than Maximina. Cards, bows on the stairway, and smiles from
the balcony brought about an exchange of calls, and finally there sprang
up a very cordial friendship between the young ladies and the bride.

If not exactly pretty, they were rather handsome, to say the least: the
older, Rosaura, a brunette with coarse features, and handsome though too
prominent black eyes; the other daughter, Filomena, was very slender,
and had a pale complexion, green eyes, a strange and mischievous look,
and reddish gray hair. This young lady had a certain amount of
forwardness unbecoming her sex and education, and this pleased the men
even more than her figure.

Miguel enjoyed keeping up a glib conversation with her, and