I have come in hungry as a bear; I can't wait till dinner
time. Please run down to the dining-room and tell them to bring me up
some lunch."

"What would you like?"

"Anything--whatever you had for your lunch." The young girl was
embarrassed.

"The fact is ... I ... I have not had any lunch to-day."

"Why not?" exclaimed Miguel, with a great show of surprise. "Why, here
it is almost six o'clock.... Didn't they bring you anything? See here,
Juana, Juana" (calling in a loud voice), "call Senorita Julia...."

"What are you going to do? for Heaven's sake what are you going to do?"
cried the girl, full of terror.

"Nothing; merely to find out why they have not brought you any
sweetmeats, or a piece of pie, or whatever you take...."

"But I did not ask for anything!"

"That makes no difference; it is their business always to bring you
whatever you are used to having."

"What did you want, Miguel?" asked Julia, coming in.

"I wanted to ask why it was that Maximina hasn't been served with lunch,
and here it is almost six o'clock."

Julia, in her turn, was confused.

"Why, it was because ... because Maximina doesn't take lunch."

"What do you mean ... doesn't take lunch?" exclaimed Miguel, in
astonishment.

"I asked her about it the very first day, and she told me that she was
not in the habit of taking lunch."

Miguel gazed at Maximina, who blushed as though she had been detected in
some heinous crime.

"Then I will tell you that she does," he said, raising his voice and
turning upon Julia with stern countenance. "I tell you that she always
is accustomed to have one, and you have done very wrong, knowing her
disposition, not to insist upon it, or at least not to have asked me
about it."

"For Heaven's sake, Miguel!" murmured Maximina, in a tone of real
anguish.

Julia flushed deeply, and turning on her heels, hastened from the room.
Maximina remained like one petrified.

Her husband, with a frowning face, strode up and down the room several
times, and then followed his sister and went straight to the
dining-room, where he found her very melancholy, taking out some plates.
Giving her a caress, and bursting into a laugh, he said:--

"I knew well that Maximina did not ask for lunch. Don't mind what I said
to you. I put her in this painful position to see if I could not cure
her of her bashfulness."

"Then you had better be careful! your gun went off at the wrong end,
for it was I whom you hit!" answere