"It don't make much difference in this world who you are but it does matter what you are ... now, I take it, you are a good girl and will marry some good man when you have recovered from this loss ... you are too young to feel this as deeply as you might ... I hope so, anyway ..." she temporized, seeing the look of despair that settled on Estrella's really beautiful and innocent features, "and my young lady wanted me to help you if you needed any help for she feels so sorry that your lover happened to be killed just as he was about to get free ... she wanted me to tell you ..." but at that point in her benevolent intention she was interrupted by the appearance of the mistress of the place, and ended, rather lamely, "she wanted me to tell you to come to her as soon as you got here."
"Why, Mage," said Ruth in her usual sweet, low voice, "you had not told me that Estrella had come ... have you been waiting for me very long?" she kindly asked the girl.
"No, Madam," said Estrella feeling the immense difference in their positions in spite of the evident indisposition and tender youth of the other woman, "I have only rested for a few moments after my climb to the top of the hill. It was very kind," she added, "of you to ask me to come and the cool air of the evening has refreshed my head for it has been aching terribly, all day."
"Can't you find some sort of refreshments for her, Mage?" asked Ruth, feeling sorry for the other's plight. "Maybe a good cup of tea would give you added strength to bear your great sorrow ... we women," she said while her sweet, low voice trembled, "we women are but weak and yet often the very heaviest of sorrows is laid upon us.... I do not know the reason for this ... I do not understand ... but I believe that we are all but a part of a very great plan which is beyond our comprehension while we are here in this finite world, and I hope ..." she had the look of one of God's good angels on her face as she said it, "and I hope to know more about this great plan when I have passed beyond this world and all its many disappointments. You have had a terrific blow, my poor Girl," she went on, kindly. "You alone must bear this grief but God has sent other human beings into this human life so that we may help each other, if only by our mutual sympathy, when we must meet what it seems almost impossible for us to bear alone ... so," she ended, "so, maybe I have been sent to try to give you courage to go on in life when your future must look dreadfully black to you."
"It surely does look black ..." moaned poor Estrella, "Victorio was all I had to lean upon in this wide world for I don't belong to the people where I live and Manuello persists in making love to me and I can't bear to have him touch me after having known the love of a man who never even looked at any other woman but me, and who was," her pride in her dead lover again taking the ascendency in her emotions, "the handsomest and smartest man who ever came to Cuba."
"The low-lived pup!" said old Mage, who had just come in with the tea-tray in her hands and heard the last few words, but she made this remark to herself alone and would have ground her teeth in making it had it not happened that she had mislaid those triumphs of the dentist's art, for old Mage was the proud possessor of two entire sets of teeth, although she seldom could lay her hands on them as she invariably removed them from her mouth each time she wished to eat anything, having grown so accustomed to gumming her food that the teeth were dreadfully in her way.
She set the tea-tray with its array of cups and saucers down and added several little concoctions of her own making to the little feast before she began, thinking to change the subject:
"Dear Miss Ruth, I wish you could have seen little Tid-i-wats a few minutes ago; she was out in the big yard and I wanted her to come back in her own place so as to be safe and so instead of going to pick her up as you know very well she won't allow anyone to do except yourself, I just got one of her saucers and a silver spoon and pounded on the edge of the saucer with the spoon, and here she came fairly bounding along the driveway; she galloped, Miss Ruth, just like a little colt out in one of our own big pastures, back home."
"The dear little Dadditts!" exclaimed her young lady, using a pet name of her own making. "How cute she must have looked ... she is so little," she explained to Estrella, "she is so very small and so very cute ... I have had her with me, now, for ... how long is it, Mage?" for she knew the old woman enjoyed being asked for information, "since we came from America the last time?"
"Let me see ..." answered Mage, deliberating, "it must be anyway twelve years and Tid-i-wats was not a young cat, even then, for she had raised one family of kittens at least ... she must be thirteen or more years old, my Dear," she said to the young girl, hoping to attract her attention to herself and so leave Ruth free from her immediate scrutiny, "just think of that! You must come with me, when you have had your tea, and see the cute little yard we have for her and then you must look over the grounds with me. Miss Ruth is not feeling very well, today, although she has such a healthy-looking, rosy face, and, so, I'll entertain you while you're here; Miss Ruth is a great reader and her eyes are not very strong ... sometimes the sun hurts them awfully."