"I am sure that I am going to disgrace you, Miguel.... I am not used to these things. Vírgen María! how much I would give to be like one of those elegant and lovely ladies that you bow to in the theatres. I don't see how you ever came to marry me, when I am neither beautiful nor able to be compared with the ladies whom you know."
"Hush! hush!" said he, laying his fingers on her mouth. "I am prouder of having married you than if you had been a princess of the blood."
"I know this," she replied, her eyes overflowing with love and happiness; "I know that I am proud because I am your wife, and because you preferred me to any handsome, elegant, and rich woman; me, a poor, good-for-nothing...."
"Hush! hush! or I will bite you," he repeated, kissing her passionately.
During the days that followed, as had been decided, they began their preparations and got out their cards. Miguel went in person to invite his Uncle Manolo.
He lived in a magnificent mansion in the Calle del Pez. Since his marriage he had changed few of his habits. It would be a great mistake to imagine that he had in the least abandoned the solicitous cares which he had always bestowed upon his elegant person: not at all! tinctures and cosmetics followed in harmony with the latest advances of chemistry; all bands and braces and the latest improvements in the science of orthopedics; the best shoemaker in Madrid; the most skilful dentist, the most fashionable tailor and perfumer in the city.
Uncle Manolo was a monument so admirably preserved that the Spanish government might have taken him for a pattern for theirs.
Nevertheless, merciless Time had been making some ravages in that proud edifice, and already some of his marks could be clearly seen on its façade; crow's-feet and wrinkles of every sort each day grew deeper and deeper; in spite of his shoulder-braces he bent a little more forward; his step, also, was not half as light and firm as before. There was no question that the least carelessness or omission in the process of his self-preservation would bring him in ruins to the ground.
Miguel found his Aunt Ana, for variety's sake, by the chimney-corner; and this, although it was rather early in the season for fires. In her, as well as in her lord and master, the ravages of time were also manifest, so much so, that it was more easy to believe that the good lady, once married, had entirely forgotten the care and adornment of her person, since, in so short a period, such terrible decay had occurred.
For la intendenta had now quite the appearance of a septegenarian; her hair was thin and white, her face pale and withered, her waist like a barrel, and her hands dark and wrinkled and repulsive to look upon.