"When you please," Doña Maria replied.
"What is to be done with this girl?"
"She will remain here: I have arranged everything."
"Let us be gone, then!" and turning towards Rosario, she said, with a malignant smile. "Farewell, till we meet again, señorita!"
Doña Rosario rose, and said in an earnest tone, "I do not curse you; but God grant, if you ever have children, that they may never be exposed to the tortures you have condemned me to endure."
On hearing this speech, which seared her heart like a red-hot iron, the Linda uttered a cry of terror; a cold perspiration beaded on her pale forehead, and she staggered out of the apartment.
"My mother! my mother!" cried Rosario; "if you still live, where are you? Why do you not come to the help of your daughter?"