In saying these words the young girl snapped her fingers together till they cracked like castanets; while her countenance, instead of expressing any very painful emotion, exhibited an air of perfect contentment.
Gertrudis made no answer, except by a sigh, half-suppressed. She sat motionless, with the exception of her foot, which kept balancing upward and downward the little slipper of blue satin, while the fresh breeze of the evening blowing in from the window, caused a gentle tremulous movement among the tresses of her hair.
“It’s very tiresome—this country life,” continued Marianita; “it’s true one can pass the day by combing out one’s hair, and taking a siesta; but in the evening, to have nothing else to do but walk in the garden and listen to the sighing breeze, instead of singing and dancing in a tertulia! Oh, it is wearisome—very, very wearisome, I declare. We are here, like the captive princesses in an Eastern romance, which I commenced reading last year, but which I have not yet finished. Santa Virgen! I see a cloud of dust upon the horizon at last—a horseman! Que clicha! (what happiness!)”
“A horseman!—what is the colour of his steed?” inquired Gertrudis, suddenly aroused.
“Ha—ha! As I live his horse is a mule—what a pity it was not some knight-errant! but I have heard that these fine gentry no longer exist.”
Gertrudis again sighed.
“Ah! I can distinguish him now,” continued Marianita. “It is a priest who rides the mule. Well, a priest is better than nobody—especially if he can play as well on the mandolin as the last one that travelled this way, and stayed two days with us. He! He is coming on a gallop—that’s not a bad sign. But no! he has a very grave, demure look. Ah! he sees me; he is waving a salute. Well, I must go down and kiss his hand, I suppose.”
Saying these words, the young Creole—whose education taught her that it was her duty to kiss the hand of every priest who came to the hacienda—pursed up her pretty rose-coloured lips in a saucy mocking fashion.
“Come, Gertrudis!” continued she; “come along with me. He is just by the entrance gate!”
“Do you see no one upon the plain?” inquired Gertrudis, not appearing to trouble herself about the arrival of the priest. “No other horseman—Don Fernando, for instance?”