“It is unkind, brother,” said Minha, “to make fun of Lina when she has been thinking how to give our walk the object which you have just regretted it lacks.”
“Besides, Mr. Benito, I am sure my idea will please you,” replied the mulatto.
“Well, what is it?” asked Minha.
“You see that liana?”
And Lina pointed to a liana of the “cipos” kind, twisted round a gigantic sensitive mimosa, whose leaves, light as feathers, shut up at the least disturbance.
“Well?” said Benito.
“I proposed,” replied Minha, “that we try to follow that liana to its very end.”
“It is an idea, and it is an object!” observed Benito, “to follow this liana, no matter what may be the obstacles, thickets, underwood, rocks, brooks, torrents, to let nothing stop us, not even——”
“Certainly, you are right, brother!” said Minha; “Lina is a trifle absurd.”
“Come on, then!” replied her brother; “you say that Lina is absurd so as to say that Benito is absurd to approve of it!”