To-day she had been listening again, and as her master was preparing to take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced around to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying in Portuguese:
"Don't begin that, Lopez. You must listen to me first."
"Must I?" he asked, kindly.
"If you don't choose to do it, I can go!" she answered, angrily. "To be sure, sitting still is more comfortable than running."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Do you suppose yonder books are the walls of Zion? Do you feel inclined to make the monks' acquaintance once more?"
"Fie, fie, Rahel, listening again? Go into the kitchen!"
"Directly! Directly! But I will speak first. You pretend, that you are only staying here to please your wife, but it's no such thing. It's yonder writing that keeps you. I know life, but you and your wife are just like two children. Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye, and blessing is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna. What sort of a creature have your books made you, since you came with the doctor's hat from Coimbra? Then everybody said: 'Lopez, Senor Lopez. Heavenly Father, what a shining light he'll be!' And now! The Lord have mercy on us! You work, work, and what does it bring you? Not an egg; not a rush! Go to your uncle in the Netherlands. He'll forget the curse, if you submit! How many of the zechins, your father saved, are still left?"
Here the doctor interrupted the old woman's torrent of speech with a stern "enough!" but she would not allow herself to be checked, and continued with increasing volubility.
"Enough, you say? I fret over perversity enough in silence. May my tongue wither, if I remain mute to-day. Good God! child, are you out of your senses? Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to be sure it isn't written in the books, that when people find out what happened in Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a Christian girl……"