ly a question of getting them!... I must look over a
good part of them, and add my signature."

"Run, then, lazybones ... run!... You may be sure that your mamma will
lay your negligence at my door."

Julita said this, pretending to be angry, but without being able to hide
the pleasure that the supposition caused her.

"I was going to spend such a delicious afternoon! And now to have to go
to a notary's office to eat dust and make my head ache!"

"Go, go! The first thing to do is the first thing to be done!... At any
rate, you were in a fair way of telling a good many fibs this
afternoon...."

"Honest, genuine truths, cousin divine!"

Don Alfonso's _berlina_ was waiting at the corner of the street,
according to the orders that he had given the coachman. He lighted an
Havana and as he slammed the door to, he said:--

"To the Riveras'."

Any one seeing him leaning back in his carriage, with his cigar between
his teeth, would have taken him for an elegant swell about to have a
drive through the Castellana.

Still the same frown, a sign of intense questioning, which had appeared
on his brow when he said good by to Miguel at the Ateneo, now furrowed
it again, perhaps deeper and darker than ever.

"At six, as always, at the Swiss restaurant," he said to his driver, as
he dismounted from the landau.

And with slow step, his face a trifle pale, he entered the doorway of
Miguel's house, and mounted the staircase.

He rang the bell vigorously, like a familiar and honored friend.

Placida came to open for him.

"Senorito, it is good to see you!" she exclaimed, with the sympathy
inspired in maid-servant by visitors when they are handsome men.

"_Hola!_ little one," said the _caballero_, in a condescending tone,
giving her a little pat on the cheek; "your master in?"

"But don't you know that the senorito went last Monday to Galicia? It is
plain enough that you don't often soil the staircase of this house with
the dust of your boots."

"_La senorita?_" asked the fine gentleman, with an absent-minded
gesture, at the same time depositing his cane and hat on the rack.

"She is sewing in her boudoir.... Shall I take up your card?"

"There is no need," he replied, starting with a firm step toward the
parlor, and opening the boudoir door.

Maximina was sewing on some article of clothing for the baby, who,
absolutely removed from the political struggles in which his papa was
engaged, was sleeping in the bedroom, an