"Mamma Anna! Aunt Elvira!" they shouted. "Uncle Pedro says the ass had a little colt last night. She is in the stable with it, and we did not know it here. Come and see it! come and see it!"
And one pulling at the grandmother and the other at the aunt, they went, to the yard and threw the door wide open.
What a two-edged dagger for the heart of Anna, the honorable woman, the loving mother! Ventura was there with Rita!
Quick as lightning Ventura stepped upon the wheel of a cart which stood close to the wall, and with one spring disappeared.
Rita, enraged, continued her washing, and with unparalleled effrontery began to sing:
"No mother-in-law plagued Eve;
No sister-in-law worried Adam;
Nor caused their souls to grieve,
For in Eden they never had them."
The children had run on to the stable without stopping. Anna led her daughter, almost fainting, into the house, and there upon the bosom of her mother, from whom the cause of her grief was no longer a secret, Elvira burst into sobs.
"And you knew it," said her mother; "silent martyr to prudence. Weep, yes, weep, for tears are like the blood which flows from wounds, and renders them less mortal. I knew what she was and warned him. I knew that reprobation must follow the union of kindred blood, and I told him so. He would not listen. It would have been better to let him go to the war. But the heart errs as well as the understanding."
In the mean time the impudent woman went on singing: