Pedro wore, with some slight difference, the dress we have already described in speaking of his son. The cloth was coarser, the bolt black, as became a widower, his clothes all fitted more loosely, and his hat had a broader brim, and was without ornament.
"It is a day of flowers!" said Maria, "the fields are smiling, and the sun seems as if he were telling them to be gay."
"Yes," said Pedro, "the yellow-haired appears to have washed his face, and sharpened his rays, for they prick like pins."
He took out a little rabbit-skin bag, in which was tobacco, and began to make a cigarette.
"Maria," said he, when he had finished it, "my opinion is, that, you will come back from Alcalá with your hands as empty as they go. But, Christian woman, who the deuce tempted you to lend money to that vagabond? You knew that he had not so much as a place whereon to fall dead, and nothing in expectation but alternate rations of hunger and necessity."
"But," said Maria, "to whom shall we lend if not to the poor? the rich have no need to borrow."
"And don't you know, big innocent, that 'he who lends to a friend, loses both the money and the friend!' But you, Maria, are always so credulous, and I tell you now that this man will pay you in three instalments: 'badly, late, and never.'"
"You always think the worst, Pedro."
"That is the reason why I always hit the mark; think ill, and you will think the truth," said the crafty Pedro.