It seemed only a few moments to Anitia, but it was really more than three hours later when she woke from her long nap. For a moment she lay still in her little white bed wondering why she should waken with such a strange feeling of anticipation in what seemed the middle of the night. Then she saw Mariquita kneeling in the moonlight with her face upturned towards the picture of Mary and her Babe which hung on Anitia’s wall.
The little girl remembered everything at once—the stories that Dolores had told her and the sadness of Mariquita’s heart. Then she forgot all else in her longing to comfort the sweet girl, who had been so kind to her. She slipped softly out of bed and, running noiselessly across the floor, put her arms around Mariquita’s neck. At the gentle embrace, the girl looked up half-startled, almost believing that the old legend had come true and that the Virgin had really come. But Anitia kissed her before she could speak.
“Oh, Mariquita,” she said, “you heard Dolores’ story, I know you did. But don’t be sorry because it is only I, for the Virgin has sent you her blessing, indeed she has.”
The girl caught the child in her arms. “Little comfort,” she murmured.
Just at that moment the soft tinkle of a guitar commenced beneath their window and the sound of a man’s rich voice in song.
“This night is the good night,
And therefore is no night of rest.”
The words were the familiar lines of the Christmas song which the children had heard in the streets, but the voice was more familiar still to Mariquita. She gave a low glad cry and ran to the window. One look below and she had turned to run swiftly down the stairs to the summer apartment on the lower floor, where she could stretch out her hand to her lover between the bars that guarded the casement. For it was indeed Don Francisco who had returned at last.
Anitia told Antonio all about it while their mother and Dolores were making them ready. They were both so excited that they could hardly drink the warm chocolate which had been prepared for them, and they were quite wide awake when it was time to start for the cathedral.
Through the patio and out into the narrow street went the family party, Mariquita the happiest of all. The children had passed through the same streets many times, but they seemed unfamiliar in the semi-darkness with their glimpses of lighted houses through uncurtained windows and across deserted patios. The sound of many feet, all hastening in the same direction, reëchoed through the streets, and the murmur of many voices rose on the midnight air.