Another day, as they were walking in the neighborhood of the Retiro, they happened to see a white hearse in which was a child's coffin. Maximina looked at it with an expression of deep pain, and watched it until it disappeared from sight; then, with a gentle sigh, she exclaimed;—
"Oh, how sorry it makes me feel for children that die!"
Miguel smiled and made no reply, reading her thoughts.
While time glided away in this sweet and delightful manner for our young couple, Marroquín, the hairy Marroquín, was trying to accomplish his own ends; the nation was over a volcano, and the former professor of the Colegio de la Merced, secretly, and in company with our friend, Merelo y García, was not behindhand in stirring the flames of civil discord.
Not a night passed without both of them uttering bloody prognostications for the future in the Café de Levante; the number of times that institutions had been crumbled into dust on the marble tables was beyond belief; the waiters, from listening to democratic discourses, served the customers badly; more then once the secret police had visited the establishment, so said the disturbers of the public peace; but there had been no arrests, and this made Marroquín desperate. He enjoyed, beyond measure, speaking so as to be heard of all who came to the table, at the same time fastening his gaze on some peaceable customer, and making tremendous boasts, so as to rouse his curiosity.
"Don Servando," he would shout to a gentlemen sitting some distance from him, "do you expect to go out for a walk to-morrow?"
"Certainly, as always, Señor Marroquín."
"You had better not take your wife and children."
"Man alive! why not?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing! That is all I have to say."