“Lucky girl that you are! To be in France without as much as stirring from your seat!”
“Don’t forget my wrap. Are the measures in the trunk? Will you be sure not to mistake the threads?”
“Take care not to get open-work embroidery—that is to be had here.”
“Open wide those big eyes of yours and look about you, so that when you come back you will be able to give us an account of all that you have seen.”
“Father Urtazu,” said the bride, approaching the Jesuit already mentioned, and taking hold of his hand, on which she pressed her lips, letting fall on it at the same time two crystalline tears, “pray for me.”
And drawing closer to him, she added, in a low voice:
“If anything should happen to papa you will let me know at once, will you not? I will send you our address at every place where we may make any stay. Take care of him for me. Promise me to go occasionally to see how he is getting on. He will be so lonely.”
The Jesuit raised his head and fixed on the young girl his eyes, that squinted slightly, as is apt to be the case with the eyes of persons accustomed to concentrate their gaze; then, with the vague smile characteristic of those given to meditation, and in the confidential tone befitting the occasion:
“Go in peace,” he answered, “and God our Lord be with you, for He is a safe companion. I have said the Itinerary for you that we may come back well and happy. Bear in mind what I have told you, little one; we are now, so to speak, a dignified married lady, and although we think our path is going to be strewn with roses and that everything is to be honey and sweetness in our new state, and that we are going out into the world to throw care to the winds and to enjoy ourselves—be on your guard! be on your guard! From the quarter where we least expect it, trouble may come, and we may have annoyances and trials and sufferings to endure that we knew nothing about when we were children. It will not do to be foolish, then, remember. We know that above there, directing the shining stars in their course, is the only One who can understand us and console us when He thinks proper to do so. Listen, instead of filling your trunks with finery, fill them with patience, child, fill them with patience. That is more useful than either arnica or plasters. If He who was so great, had need of it to help Him to bear the cross, you who are so little——”
The homily might have lasted until now, accompanied and emphasized from time to time by little slaps on the shoulder, had it not been interrupted by the shock, rude as reality, of the train getting in motion. There was a momentary confusion. The groom hastened to take leave of everybody with a certain cordial familiarity in which the experienced eye could detect a tinge of affectation and patronizing condescension. He threw his right arm around his father-in-law, placing his left hand, covered with a well-fitting yellow castor glove, on the old man’s shoulder.