"Who will care, when I am gone, for the worthless garments of my little ones? Surely not Mariposilla, for she understands not why I should still grieve, after the long years that have passed.
"She loves, however, the scarf of the butterflies, and begs often to possess it. When I am taken she may do as she desires with it, for it will then be her own, to treasure or to resign unto strangers.
"Yet I pray that she may always hold sacred the gift of her father's grandmother; for she, too, was carried to her christening wrapped in the beautiful shawl.
"Well do I remember how sore was my heart the day that my mother went alone to the church with my fatherless child. So ill was I, that I cared not even to name my little daughter, entreating my mother to consult with the priest, who might choose for us.
"But my good mother was wiser than I, and when she had thought much she remembered the butterflies upon the beautiful scarf, and how my husband, Don Arturo, had delighted to behold them glistening in the sunlight when I first wore the shawl to my bridal; how, afterwards, he insisted that his children should first be shown to his household wrapped in the splendid gift of his grandmother. Wisely she remembered these things, and when, weeks after, I asked her the name of my child, I wept for joy when she said, 'She is Mariposilla.'"
Tenderly the dark hand folded and replaced in its embroidered bag the precious scarf of the butterflies. Tearfully she laid it away by the side of the sparkling riding-jacket and gorgeous botas of the dead Arturo, while she reverently closed the old chest, relegating to its scented depths the fading remnants of her former grandeur, together with the sad, sweet memories of her poetic life.