o?"--"It is
certainly one of the loveliest babies that I ever saw, Rivera."--"Do you
expect it at this time of its life to have perfect features?"

"Give it here, give it here!" said _la brigadiera_, snatching it from
his hands.

"That is the kind of flowers that you give the poor little creature!"

"I should like to know what kind of a thing you were two hours after you
were born, senorito," exclaimed Juana.

Miguel, not feeling any indignation at this lack of respect, replied:--

"Most beautiful!"

"How you must have changed for the worse since then!" retorted the
countess, laughing.

"Not so very much, senora, not so very much; I am certain that my wife
will quite agree with me."

"Not at all," said Maximina, making a face to express her vexation.

"Maximina!"

"Then why did you call him ugly?"

"I see that this young gentleman has wholly driven me out of my place!"

Meanwhile the bundle was passing from hand to hand, not without all the
time emitting more and more energetic protests against such an unwelcome
journey. But this same helpless desperation was the very thing that gave
the most delight to those excellent women; they died with laughter to
behold that poor little mouth open even to the throat, and that
expressive and desperate waving of little hands filled with threats.

"Come, come! what lungs you have, child!"

"It is perfectly delightful! cheer up, man alive, cheer up! What a waste
of genius, little pet!"

"What a monkey-face it makes when it cries!"

To tell the truth, it _was_ horrible.

"Oh! it is stopping, senora! oh! it is stopping!" cried Placida.

All the women gathered around it, in affright.

"What do you mean, _it is stopping_?" demanded Miguel, leaping from his
chair.

"It has stopped crying, senorito!"

The baby, with its face drawn up and its mouth open, made no sound. The
countess shook it with all her might till she almost murdered it:
finally the infant emitted a scream more excruciating than ever, and all
the women breathed a sigh of relief.

"Come now; we must give this little rascal to his mamma; if he does not
get something to eat, he will be angry with us."

"How can that baby know enough to be angry?" thought Miguel.

They put it in the bed, and held its mouth to the maternal fount, but it
refused, we cannot tell under what pretext, to take the breast, and this
conduct the women found very extraordinary. Maximina looked at him with
stern eyes, mentally