"What can I do to requite your kindness?"
"Poor dear, I have only you to love now."
"Say adore, my darling father; for it is adoration you feel for me. Hence, I love you with all the strength God has placed in my heart."
"And yet," Don Valentine said, with a gentle accent of reproach, "you do not fear, naughty girl, to cause me anxiety."
"I?" Concha asked, with an internal tremor.
"Yes, you, you," he said, threatening her tenderly with his finger, "you hide something from me."
"Father!"
"Come, child, a father's eyes can read the heart of a girl of fifteen, and for some days past, if I am not mistaken, I have not been the sole object of your thoughts."
"That is true," the girl replied, with a certain amount of resolution.
"And whom are you dreaming of, little maid?" Don Valentine asked, hiding his anxiety behind a smile.