The house of the family of Perico was spacious and neatly whitewashed, both without and within. On each side of the door, built against the wall, was a bench of mason work. In the entry hung a lantern before an image of our Lord which was fixed upon the inner door, according to the Catholic custom, which requires that a religious thought shall precede everything, and puts all things under some holy patronage. In the midst of the spacious court-yard an enormous orange-tree rose luxuriantly upon its smooth and robust trunk. Its base was shielded by a wooden frame. For numberless generations this beautiful tree had been a source of enjoyment to this family. The deceased Juan Alvareda, the father of Perico, claimed upon tradition, that its existence dated as far back as the expulsion of the Moors, when, according to his assertion, an Alvareda, a soldier of the royal saint, Fernando, had planted it, and when the parish priest, who was his wife's brother, would jest him upon the antiquity, and uninterrupted succession of his lineage, or make light of it, he always answered, without being disturbed or vacillating for an instant in his conviction, that all the lineages of the world were ancient, and that, though the direct line or succession of the rich might often be extinguished, such a thing never happened with the poor.
The women of the family made of the leaves of the orange-tree tonics for the stomach and soothing preparations for the nerves. The young girls adorned themselves with its flowers and made confections of them. The children regaled their palate and refreshed their blood with its fruit. The birds had their quarters-general among its leaves, and sung to it a thousand cheerful songs, while its possessors, who had grown up under its shelter, watered it unweariedly in summer-time and in winter cut away its withered twigs, as one pulls the gray hairs from the head of the father he would never see grow old.
On opposite sides of the entry were two suites of rooms, or, according to the expression of the province, partidos, both alike; consisting, each, of a parlor having two small windows with gratings looking toward the street, and two bedrooms forming an angle with the parlor, and receiving light from the yard. At the end of the yard was a door which opened into a large enclosure in which were the kitchen, wash-house, and stables, and which paraded in its centre a large fig-tree of so little pretension and self-esteem that it yielded itself without complaint to the nightly roost of the hens, never having bent its boughs under the inconvenient weight, even to play them a trick by way of carnival.
The master of the house had been dead three years. When he felt his end approaching, he called his son to him and said: "In your care I leave your mother and sister; be guided by the one and watch over the other. Live always in the holy fear of God, and think often of death, so that you may see his approach without either surprise or fear. Remember my end, that you may not dread your own. All the Alvaredas have been honest men; in your veins flows the same Spanish blood and in your heart exist the same Catholic principles that made them such. Be like them, and you will live happily and die in peace!"
Anna, his widow, was a woman distinguished among her class, and she would have been so in a more elevated one. Carefully brought up by her brother the priest, her understanding was cultivated, her character grave, her manners dignified, and her virtue instinctive. These merits, united with [{501}] her easy circumstances, gave her a real superiority over those who surrounded her, which she accepted without misusing. Her son Perico, submissive, modest, and industrious, had been her consolation, his love for his cousin Rita being the only disquietude he had ever caused her.
Her daughter Elvira, who was three years younger than Perico, was a malva in gentleness, a violet in modesty and a lily in purity. Ill-health in childhood had given to her features, which closely resembled those of her brother, a delicacy, and an expression of calm resignation, which lent to her a singular attraction. From her infancy she had clung to Ventura, the proud and handsome son of Uncle Pedro, who had been the friend and gossip of the late Alvareda.
The wife of Pedro died in giving birth to a daughter, who from her infancy had been confided to the care of her mother's sister, a religious of Alcala. Separated thus from his daughter, Pedro had concentrated all his affection upon his son, and with pride and satisfaction had seen him become the handsomest, the bravest, and the most gallant, of all the youths of the place.
Directly in front of the house of the Alvaredas stood the small cottage of Maria, the mother of Rita. Maria was the widow of Anna's brother, who had been superintendent of the neighboring hacienda of Quintos.
This woman was so good, so without gall, so candid and simple, that she had never possessed enough force and energy to subdue the decided, haughty, and imperious character which her daughter had manifested from her childhood, and these evil dispositions had therefore developed themselves without restraint. She was violent-tempered, fickle, and cold-hearted. Her face, extraordinarily beautiful, seductively expressive, piquant, lively, smiling, and mischievous, formed a perfect contrast to that of her cousin Elvira.
The one might have been compared to a fresh rose armed with its thorns; the other to one of those roses of passion, which lift above their pale leaves a crown of thorns in token of endurance, while they hide in the depths of their calix the sweetest honey.