"Rita, Rita!" exclaimed Perico, "I have spoken to my mother."
"You!" said Rita, opening again the half-shut blind. "You don't say it! Why, this is another miracle like that of Balaam's ass! and what answer did this 'mater' not 'amabilis' give you?"
"She says, yes, that I may marry," answered Perico delightedly.
"Says yes!" mocked Rita. "Saint Quilindon help me! How often a key can turn! But it belongs to the wise to change their minds. Go along with you! To-morrow I will come over and condole with her. Perico, what if, following the good example of your mother, as mine exhorts me to, I also should change my mind and now say no?"
"Rita, Rita!" cried Perico, beside himself with joy, "you are going to be my wife."
"That remains to be seen," she responded; "the idea is not like a silver dollar, which, the oftener you turn it, the prettier it looks."
With these and other absurdities Rita blotted entirely from the mind of Perico, the solemn impression his mother's words had left there.
CHAPTER IV.
On the following morning Anna was sitting alone, sad and depressed, when Uncle Pedro entered. "Neighbor," he said, "here I am, because I have come."