“How charming your sister is,” said he.
“Yes; she’s as clever as a squirrel, but more sensitive than any one I know. The slightest thing offends her.”
“Perhaps you have petted her too much?”
“Of course. I am years older than she. She is like a daughter to me.”
“You must be very fond of her.”
“Yes; I put her to bed and to sleep even yet. Sometimes she has fits of temper over nothing at all! But she has a heart of gold.”
At this point the little girl returned, carrying a telescope bigger than she was.
“What a tiny girl!” exclaimed Rafaela, taking the telescope from Remedios.
They rested the instrument on the wall of the azotea and took turns looking through it.
The afternoon was steadily advancing; yellow towers and pink belfries rose above the wet roofs, their glass windows brilliant in the last rays of the setting sun; a broad, slate-covered cupola outlined its bulk against the horizon; here and there a cypress rose like a black pyramid between great, white walls, and the thousands of grey tiled roofs; and the iron weather-vanes, some in the shape of a peaceable San Rafael, others in the form of a rampant dragon with fierce claws and pointed tongue, surmounted the gables and sheds, and decorated the ancient belfries, covered with a greenish rust by the sun of centuries....