A look of derision lighted up the inexpressive features of the physician; he glanced at Agonde and smothering another burst of laughter, began:
"The Señora—"
"Chut!" interrupted the apothecary furiously. The whole Comba family were making an irruption into the shop through the small door of the porch. Mother and daughter formed a charming group, both wearing wide-brimmed hats of coarse straw adorned with enormous bows of flame-colored bunting. Their écru cotton gowns embroidered with red braid completed the rustic character of their costumes, reminding one of a bunch of poppies and straw. The girl's luxuriant dark hair hung loose over her shoulders, and the fair locks of the mother curled in a tangled mass under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat. Nieves did not wear gloves nor was there visible on her face a trace of powder, or of any other of the cosmetics whose use is imputed unjustly by the women of the provinces to the Madridlenians; on the contrary, her rosy ears and neck showed signs of energetic friction with the towel and cold water. As for Don Victoriano, the ravages made in his countenance by care and sickness were still more apparent in the morning light; it was not, as Agonde had said, age that was visible there; it was virility, but tortured, exhausted, wounded to death.
"Why! Have you had chocolate already?" asked Agonde, in confusion.
"No, friend Saturnino, nor shall we take it, with your permission, until we return. Don't trouble yourself on our account. Victoriniña has ransacked your pantry—your closets——"
The child half opened a handkerchief which she held by the four corners, disclosing a provision of bread, cake, and the cheese of the country.
"At least let me bring you a whole cheese. I will go see if there is not some fresh bread, just out of the oven——"
Don Victoriano objected—let him not be deprived of the pleasure of going to breakfast in the poplar-grove near the spring, just as he had done when a boy. Agonde remarked that those articles of food were not wholesome for him, to which Tropiezo, scratching the tip of his ear, responded sceptically:
"Bah! bah! bah! Those are new-fangled notions. What is wholesome for the body—can't they understand that—is what the body craves. If the gentleman likes bread—and for your malady, Señor Don Victoriano, there is nothing like the waters here. I don't know why people go to give their money to those French when we have better things at home than any they can give us."
The Minister looked at Tropiezo with keen interest depicted on his countenance. He called to mind his last visit to Sanchez del Abrojo and the contraction of the lips with which the learned practitioner had said to him: