“Who are these chatterers?
Oh, such a number!
Nor by day nor by night
Do they let me slumber.
They’re daughters of the Moorish king
Who search the garden-close
For lovely Lady Ana,
The sweetest thing that grows.
She’s opening the jasmine
And shutting up the rose.”
Then the children all at once lifted the pink frock and wrapped it about Isabella’s head, while Pilarica, dancing faster than ever, led them in singing seven times over:
“Butterfly, butterfly,
Dressed in rose-petals!
Is it on candle-flame
Butterfly settles?
How many shirts
Have you woven of rain?
Weave me another
Ere I call you again.”
Suddenly they varied the song:
“Now that Lady Ana
Walks in garden sweet,
Gathering the roses
Whose dew is on her feet,
Butterfly, butterfly,
Can you catch us? Try it, try!”
In an instant the circle had broken and scattered, while the Butterfly, blinded and half smothered in the folds of the skirt, dashed about as best she could, trying to catch one or another of her teasing playmates.
Then followed Washerwoman, and Chicken-Market, Rose and Pink, and Golden Earrings, and when, at noon, Don Carlos and Rafael came back, the children were all absorbed in the circle-dance of Mambrú. Don Carlos remembered the song from his own childhood in Saragossa and hummed the pathetic couplets under his breath, as he stood watching.
“Mambrú is gone to serve the king,
And comes no more by fall or spring.
“We’ve looked until our eyes are dim.
Will no one give us word of him?