"What a pretty servant you have, cousin," said Felisa.
Beltran started.
"Servant? Oh, you mean Agueda. She—she—is scarcely a servant, Agueda; she keeps my house for me."
Felisa turned and gazed after Agueda. The girl had walked the length of the broad veranda and stood waiting opposite a door, lithe and upright. She looked back, her face grave and serious. She was taller by several inches than Felisa. Her figure, slender as Felisa's own, was clothed in a pale blue cotton gown, fresh and clean, though faded with frequent washings, a spotless collar and cuffs setting off the statuesque throat and the shapely hands.
Felisa tick-tacked down the long veranda, her ruffles and billowy laces bouncing with her important little body. She uttered a subdued scream of surprise as she reached the open doorway and caught sight of the fresh, cool-looking room, with its white furniture and bare floors, its general air of luxurious simplicity. The wooden shutter in the wall opposite the door was flung wide, and one was conscious of a tender tone of yellow green, caused by the rays of sunlight shining through and over the broad banana leaves. Great lilac and yellow pods hung from the shafts of greenery; some of the large oval leaves had fallen upon the veranda. Felisa noted them when she crossed the room to inquire further into her surroundings.
A ragged black was sitting on the veranda edge, swinging his legs over the six feet of space. "Hand me that leaf," said Felisa. The boy arose at once, and picking up the lilac leaf of the banana flower, held it out to her with a bow and the words in Spanish, "As the Señorita wishes."
Felisa took the leaf, but threw it down at once. She had expected to find a soft thing which would crumple in her hand. The leaf was hard and tough as leather. She could no more crush or break it with her small fingers than if it had been made of india-rubber, which, but for its color, it strongly resembled.
She turned and looked at Agueda.
"And do you have no curtains at the windows?"
"We have no curtains, and windows we do not have, either," answered Agueda. "The Señorita can see that there are wooden shutters at the windows. No one has windows on this side of the island."