Catrina was preparing the bowl of bread and milk, and as she approached, the little one held out her hands, and when Catrina took her she hid her face in her bosom and sobbed softly. The child was hungry, and as the girl offered her the bread and milk, she ate it eagerly, but all the while her frightened gaze was fixed upon the face of the woman, who seemed to grow uneasy before the pitiful terror of those innocent eyes.
“It is always so now. Even this child shrinks from me, and I don’t mean to harm her. She has her bread and milk here, if it is not in a silver bowl. Ah! my heart is of stone, now—of stone!” and instinctively she folded her arms over her bosom, and, rocking herself, gazed into the fire as though she were reading the future in its fitful embers.
No wonder that the child, used only to tenderness, looked fearfully upon that pale, dark face, grown prematurely old. Her hair still hung over her shoulders, a long and tangled mass, all its purple luster, all its beauty gone forever. There was a strange, wild look about the eyes, and under them a dark, sunken circle. Far into the night she sat brooding over the glowing embers, till they were turned to blackened cinders.
That night Catrina had a more pleasant dream than she had known since her father died.
After the little one had eaten her supper, Catrina undressed her, and wrapping her in a blanket, placed her in her own bed, patting her caressingly with her hand till she fell asleep.
Catrina lay down beside her, and soon she dreamed that an angel came to the cottage and changed the darkness to light, that even her step-mother’s face grew gentle and tender, and her voice soft and low in that blessed presence. Her own weary heart grew light, and as she looked fondly at this angel, full of gratitude for her new-born happiness, she saw only the child before her, but clearly she heard these words, in the well-remembered tones of her father’s voice, saying:—
“This child shall be the angel of the house.” She awoke to find her face bathed in tears, and kissed the baby a hundred times, and in her silence prayed God to bless the darling.
Already the joy of an angel’s presence filled her heart. Poor little Catrina! She was only a child of ten years, yet her face looked pinched, old, and careworn. This was not strange for the work of the cottage fell to her small hands, and there was no one to say: “You have done well, my little Catrina.”
She could not remember her own gentle mother, nor when the step-mother came to them, but she never forgot the sad face of the dear papa, when he used to put his hand upon her tangled hair, saying: “Catrina, you will miss papa; no one else but my poor little desolate Mijita mia, Mijita mia.” Then he would turn to hide the tears that would not be driven back. In those days of illness he was helpless as Catrina in her babyhood.
One day, when the step-mother had been gone since the dawning, the father seemed to sleep, Catrina sat very silently for many hours, for young as she was, she did not wish to disturb poor sick papa when sleeping. She grew very weary, but still he did not wake; so she ran softly to the bedside, and looked at him till her heart grew faint. He lay so still, and was very pale; and when she climbed up and laid her little face against his, she shuddered and wept bitterly, it was so very cold. After a while the step-mother returned. Soon some men came and took the father away, and though they looked very rough, one of them stopped and gave her a tortilla, saying: “Poor little young one, she has lost her best friend.”