"Stop; I have just got another idea. Shall I tell you? It is that you should come with me; two of us together we should help each other to earn money and to learn. For you are clever too, I am too sharp not to see that; and you can learn to be a lady as I can to be a gentleman. Oh Lord! how I should laugh to see you playing the piano like Doña Sofía."
"What a simpleton you are! Why I am no good for anything. If I went with you, I should only be a clog and burden to you."
"But they say now that Don Pablo is going to be made to see, and when he can see, you will have nothing to do in Socartes. What do you think of my plan? Why do not you answer?"
There was a long pause, during which Nela made no answer. Celipin asked her again but got no answer.
"Go to sleep, Celipin," she said from the bottom of the baskets. "I am dreadfully sleepy."
"If my brain will let me sleep, God save us!"
And a minute later he was dreaming of himself in the semblance of Don Teodoro Golfin, fixing new eyes in old sockets, splitting open fragments of rock, and snatching sick men from the jaws of death by means of doses of flies, stewed on a Monday, with hazel twigs picked by a maiden. He saw himself dressed with gorgeous garments, his hands encased in perfumed gloves, and riding in a coach drawn by swans instead of horses, invited by Kings and courted by Queens, attending ladies of distinction, lauded by nobles, and carried in triumph by all the peoples of the earth.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
BETWEEN TWO BASKETS.
Nela had shut herself into her baskets to be alone; we will follow her, however, and look in upon her thoughts. But first we must give a little more of her history.