"I should feel none of the things I feel now, but something else, much better—and I should be with my mother."
"I see you are more silly than wicked," said Golfin laughing. "Now, be quite honest with me. Do you owe me any grudge?"
"No indeed. I owe no one any grudge—least of all you, Señor, who have been so kind to me, and have made my master see."
"Very good—but that is not all; I not only want you to like me, but you must trust me and tell me all your little secrets. Strange little secrets are hidden in your mind, little woman, and you must tell them all to me—every one. You will see, I shall not be hard upon you; I shall make a very kind father confessor."
Nela smiled a forlorn smile; then bending her head, she fell on her knees.
"No, silly child, that is not the way; sit down by me—come here," said Golfin, gently drawing her to a seat by his side. "I fancy you were going crazy for want of some one to whom you could tell everything; is it not so? And you are to conceal nothing. You are indeed alone in the world, poor child.—Come, Nela, let us see; tell me first of all why—now be very attentive—why you took it into your head that you wanted to kill yourself?"
Nela did not answer.
"I saw you happy enough, and content with life to all appearance, only a few days since. Why have you suddenly gone mad in a single night?"
"I want to go to my mother—" replied Nela, after hesitating a moment. "I do not want to live any longer. Of what good am I in the world? Is it not much better that I should die? And if God will not make me die, I will kill myself, my own way."
"This notion that you are of no use is at the bottom of all your miseries, poor little creature! Curses on him—or on them, for they are many—who ever put it into your head. They are all equally responsible for the neglect, the isolation, and the ignorance in which you lived. You are of no use! God knows what you might have been if you had fallen into other hands! A refined nature is yours, perhaps an exquisitely superior one.—But good Heavens! If you put a harp into clumsy hands what can they do with it but break it.—Because your fragile frame is not strong enough to break stones and carry earth like those brutes in human form Mariuca and Pepina, who shall say that you are of no use? Were we all born to toil like mere animals? Are you to be forbidden to have any intelligence, any feeling, any of the gifts of nature which no one has ever cultivated in you? Nonsense! You are of some use; you might be of great good if you only fell into hands that could mould you and train you."