"And your Nani will stuff your head with nonsense and proverbs," said Mrs. Chandos.
"No-a, indeed! they all feete," protested her mother. "Verona is sensible, thatt I can see, and now she is in her father's house she will be content, and will stretch her feet to the length of the sheet. Won't you, child?"
"I am not looking for riches and luxuries, ma'am."
"Yes. But hitherto you have had five fingers in the ghee. You do not know what it is to be poor."
As this was true Verona remained silent.
"And you are so handsome!" resumed the old woman. "You will be arl-right, I see it in your face. You will be lucky. You know the saying, 'Who eats sugar, will get sugar.'"
Then turning sharply to her daughter, she said:—"Rosie, this girl is not like any one of you, no! she is different to all. It is another face!"
"And how do you account for it, Nani?" inquired Mrs. Chandos, with a sneering smile.
"Oh, it is quite plain! Oh, thatt is easily done!" rejoined Mrs. Lopez with delighted alacrity. "She takes after my mother. Yes; she must inherit from her; for, although she was only a Temple girl who danced before the gods—a Naikin from Goa, where my father first saw her—yet she was celebrated as the most beautiful woman on the whole West coast!"
"And you think Verona beautiful, and like her?" cried her daughter, bursting into a peal of derisive laughter. "Whatt a joke! Well, Nani, you must be blind! She is well enough, but no beauty."