“Senhor Sebastião!”
It was Paula the furniture-dealer.
“I hope you are well, Senhor João.”
Paula spat on the pavement, and with his hands crossed behind him under the long skirts of his coat, said gravely,—
“Senhor Sebastião, is there any one sick in the house of the Senhor Engineer?”
“No,” returned Sebastião, in a tone of surprise. “Why?”
Paula coughed, spat again, and said,—
“Because I have observed a gentleman entering the house every day, and I thought it might be the doctor,—one of those new homœopaths.”
Sebastião turned scarlet.
“No,” he responded; “it is the cousin of Donna Luiza.”