“There was but one angel,” objected her brunette cousin.
“That is true. The two old ones think themselves everything, but they are less than nothing. I would not change my years for theirs, with their jewels and their quarterings. Thanks be to God, in our Spain, we are all as noble as the nobles, or at least in this province!”
“You are also all beautiful!” said I.
“That you can say so, señor, after seeing that wonder!” exclaimed the landlord's eldest daughter, a creature of carnation and flame. “Ah, the joy of it, we have been undressing her!”
“If you could have seen her, with gold hair down to her knees!” gasped a gypsy of fifteen. “And when we had got her dress off, and she was in her—”
“Hush, Micaela! it is not seemly that you should mention such garments in the presence of señores!” broke in the girl of the copper coronet.
NOW YOU ARE AS BAD AS I WAS, MARIQUITA
[pg 183] “But why, then, since they are most beautiful? You know well, Mariquita, you yourself said they were like the handwork of fairies, and her shoulders—”
“Be silent, foolish one, or I shall have to burn your nose off with the warming-pan!”