“Why, you might sell it, child. I myself would give you fifty maravedis for it.”
“Give me fifty maravedis for it!” exclaimed the child, wondering what he could possibly want it for.
The Corregidor, fancying her surprise was dictated by indignation at the smallness of his offer, and incited by a gesture from his wife, impatient lest she should lose the prize, hastened to reply, “Well, if that does not content you, I’ll give you 100 maravedis.”
But Juanita’s astonishment only increased; so she stared at him instead of answering.
“I’d even say 150,” continued the Corregidor.
But Juanita only looked the more surprised. And so they went on, his anxiety bidding against her bewilderment, till at last he got up to 500 maravedis!
“500 maravedis!” echoed the child, as if waking from a trance at the words which brought back to memory the fee required to restore her father’s sight. “Oh, yes! give me 500 maravedis, it is all yours at that!” And then the thought of her great loss made her burst into a flood of tears. It was a thought which for a moment almost overpowered her strong sense of filial piety, and in the depth of her little heart she half wished the Corregidor would repent of his bargain. But no such luck; at her first sign of yielding the lady had run off to fetch her largest scissors, and in a trice she had begun shearing at the glittering spoil. Down the bright silken masses fell on the snowy drapery, and beside them fell the child’s pearly tears over her lost treasure. At last the sacrifice was complete; and poor Juanita stood in the midst of the ruin more dead than alive.
Then the Corregidor counted into her lap the promised sum, and the reckoning once more woke a sensation of joy. Wrapping her hood close round her, Juanita lost not a moment in flying to conduct her father to the house of the Jew.
Her thoughts were now entirely fixed on the moment of his restoration, but even this thought was embittered by the reflection that his one reason for desiring to have his sight back was to look on her—and she was no longer what she had been!
The strange alteration in her appearance soon got whispered about among the neighbours; and she got so much stared at that she never ventured into the street but when forced by sheer necessity, and then she ran along, looking neither to the right hand nor the left, and not even perceiving how considerately her opposite neighbour the barber followed her steps, and defended her from the rudeness of the street boys.