"Thanks!" she said dryly, without looking at me.
It did not matter. I was sure she had given me a reward. I felt happy and peaceful.
But next day, after this small bounty and grateful success, adverse fate had prepared for me a graver alarm than I had ever experienced in my life of peril and hazard. Neither when I ran aground in the Rio de la Plata, nor when the sea knocked away the bridge and half our masts in the English Channel, did I feel my heart so constricted by any sudden encounter. The agent to furnish me with this most cruel trial was Doña Amparo. We had been chatting in this lady's sewing-room, Cristina and I. While they worked I had been turning over an album of portraits of all of the family and many of their friends. I inquired, and Doña Amparo told me, who the originals were. Cristina remained silent.
"Who is this charming child?" I asked, gazing at the likeness of a little girl of ten or twelve years. "What beautiful eyes!"
"Don't you recognize her? It is Cristina."
"Ah!" I exclaimed, surprised. And, looking at her, I observed that she was crimson.
"She was then in school. Wasn't she very lovely?"
"Yes, I think so," I stammered.
"Mamma, don't say such absurd things. She looks like a picked chicken!" exclaimed the one under discussion, laughing.
"Like a picked chicken!" cried the mother indignantly; "you were plump as possible. From that time you have done nothing but lose ground. I would give something to see you now as you were then. And Ribot will say the same."