He lived with his daughter Encarna, a coarse specimen of some twenty-five years, exceedingly vulgar and the personification of insolence, who went walking with her father on Sundays, bedecked with jewelry. Encarna's bosom was consumed with the fires of passion for Leandro; but that ingrate, enamoured of Milagros, was unscathed by the soul-flames of the second-hand dealer's daughter.
Wherefore Encarna mortally hated Milagros and the members of her family; every hour of the day she branded them as vulgarians, starvelings, and insulted them with such scoffing sobriquets as Mendrugo, "Beggar's Crumb," which was applied by her to the proof-reader, and "The Madwoman of the Vatican," which meant his daughter.
It was not at all rare for such hatreds, between persons forced almost into living in common, to grow to violent rancour and malevolence; thus, the members of one and the other family never looked at each other without exchanging curses and wishes for the most disastrous misfortunes.
CHAPTER III
Roberto Hastings at the Shoemaker's—Procession of Beggars—Court of Miracles.
One morning toward the end of September Roberto appeared in the doorway of The Regeneration of Footwear, and thrusting his head into the shop exclaimed:
"Hello, Manuel!"
"Hello, Don Roberto!"
"Working, eh?"
Manuel shrugged his shoulders, indicating that the job was not exactly to his taste.