But madame's grievance was evidently not very deep-seated, for she laughed as she adjusted the folds of her mantilla more becomingly, and looking across at a mirror could only confess herself satisfied with her bewitching appearance.
Near her stood a good-looking boy of some fourteen years, who evidently just then thought the attractions of the fair far more important than his mother's adorning. He was impatient to be gone.
"Calm yourself, my treasure," she remonstrated. "The day is yet young. Chestnuts will not all be roasted, nor brazen trumpets all sold. These are eternal and inexhaustible, like the snows of the Sierra. Oh! youth, youth, with all its capacities!" she dramatically added. "Ah, señor, you will think me very old, when you see me the mother of this great boy!"
We gallantly protested she was under a delusion: he must be her brother.
"My son, señor, my son. I married at sixteen, when I was almost such a child as he, and I really do feel more like his sister than his mother. Ahimé! If I had only waited a few years longer I might have chosen more wisely; perhaps have found a husband to keep me instead of my keeping him. Marriage is a lottery."
We suggested that every cloud has its silver lining.
"True, señor. And after all if I did not draw the highest number, neither did I fall upon the lowest. This dear youth too is a consolation. He is fond of swords and trumpets, but never shall be a soldier. I have long had the money put by for a substitute in case he should be unlucky. For that matter, Heaven has prospered my industry and in a humble way we are at ease."
This recalled the scene witnessed in the earlier hours of the morning and the appointment half made with the colonel for the morrow.
"Evidently you do not approve of conscription, madame, which to-day seems to be running hand-in-hand with the revels of the fair."
"I see that conscription is a necessary evil," returned madame, "for without it we should not get soldiers; but you will never persuade me any good can come of it. That my son here, who has been carefully brought up, should suddenly be thrown under the influence of the worst and vilest of mankind—no, it is impossible to avoid disaster. So, Ernesto, never fix your affections on a military life, for it can never be, never shall be. I would sooner make you a priest, though I haven't the least ambition that way either."