"You feel better, you do feel better, don't you? Yes, yes, you must feel better!"
"Since you say so, you must be very sure of it," he would say slyly, with an ironical smile.
And then seeing her great, timid, innocent eyes fill with tears, he would repent of his unseasonable words, and add, caressing her hand:—
"Don't mind about me. I am doing well. To-morrow I shall be all right; truly I shall."
And the young wife was happy for a few moments, until she would be alarmed again by some new complaint from the sick man.
How delightful when he got well again! It was the first time that her husband ever heard her sing at the top of her voice. She ran and jumped, jested with the maids, and was even quite successful in mimicking the Madrid accent which Juana had been recently acquiring. This sudden attack of obstreperous joy formed a lovely contrast with the usual seriousness of her character. Miguel, who knew the reason of it, looked at her with delight.
When he was entirely recovered, it was incumbent upon them to attend mass at San Sebastian. Maximina suggested it, and asked him with so much humility that he hadn't the heart to object.
The former colegiala of the convent of Vergara could not help mixing religion with all the acts of her life. Miguel, in spite of his own lack of faith, found his wife's piety so poetical, so innocent, that it never once passed through his mind to disaffect her of it. "If ever it became hypocritical, it would be quite another thing," he said to himself.
Consequently he was not at all averse to going with her every Sunday to mass; besides, Maximina for many months could not bring herself to set foot in the street alone.
After a while, however, the brigadier's son began to forget his duty, and under the pretext that San Sebastian was near at hand, he would stay at home Sunday mornings, while Maximina, with heroic courage, would assume the terrible risk of going to church all by herself.