“Nothing is ugly at fifteen.”
“And our Aunt Barbara, my father’s own sister? She is lovely, of course,” asserted Rafael, the wistful look crossing his brown face.
“ ‘There is no sea-wave without salt;
There is no woman without her fault,’
but Doña Barbara is one of the best.”
Suddenly Tia Marta beat her fist upon the table.
“Ay de mi! That I, an Andalusian of Seville, must go to Galicia, to the ends of the earth, to serve in the house of strangers!” she cried chokingly. “How shall I bear the ways of a mistress? Whether the pitcher hit the stone, or the stone hit the pitcher, it goes ill with the pitcher.”
Then there fell upon the group a silence that awakened Grandfather.
“Is the coach rolling over sand,” he asked, “or are the wings of an angel shedding hush as he passes overhead?”
Pedrillo, who had fallen into a deep muse, roused himself with a laugh.
“We have all been dreaming,” he said in his gruffest tone. “It is because we are so near to Cordova, the City of Dreams. And yet we are three hours away. But he who goes on, gets there.”