“That is your Andalusian arithmetic,” laughed Don Carlos, shaking his head. “They say in Galicia that a man should not try to count the stars, lest he come to have as many wrinkles as the number of stars he has counted.”
“Where’s Galicia?” asked Pilarica.
“Far from here, in the northwest corner of Spain,” answered Don Carlos, more gravely than seemed necessary. “My sister—your Aunt Barbara—lives there, and one of these days I am going to tell you more of her, and of her husband, your Uncle Manuel, and of your Cousin Dolores, who is a year or two younger than Rodrigo. They are the only kindred we have in the world.”
Even Rodrigo wondered at the sudden seriousness in Don Carlos’ tone, but Grandfather, at that moment, chanted another riddle, which, as it turned out, nobody could guess, not even Tia Marta, who had come to the doorway again.
“Tell me, what is the thing I mean,
That the greater it grows the less is seen.”
Grandfather finally had to tell them the answer, “Darkness,” and then Rafael assigned to everybody a forfeit. Tia Marta was sent into the house after a treat, which, for Rafael’s own forfeit, he was not to taste; Pilarica danced, Rodrigo vaulted over the cot, and Don Carlos was begged to “tell about the heroes of Spain.”
“To-morrow,” said the father, taking Rafael’s wrist in his cool fingers and counting the pulse. “You have had quite enough talking for to-night, my son.”
And then the English consul, whose home was on the Alhambra hill, dropped in, just as Tia Marta was passing around—but not to Rafael—the most delicious cinnamon paste whose secret she had learned from the nuns in Seville. The consul shook hands with Don Carlos and Rodrigo, patted Pilarica’s head, complimented Tia Marta on the paste, and then bent over Rafael’s cot.
“So you have been having a fever, my little man?” he said.
“Oh, such a beautiful fever!” sighed Rafael blissfully, snuggling his face against his father’s coat sleeve.