A shade of impatience passed over the elder woman's face.
“We do not hope for miracles now, child,” she answered; “your father has worked hard for his wealth, but God will not treat him as he treated Job.”
“Depend upon it, if he does not, mother mine, it is because he knows what is best for us. You would not have us lose our hopes of the hereafter for the sake of more or less comfort in the earthly present?”
“My child, you should have been a boy; such sayings would tell well in a sermon, but in practical business matters they are but cold comfort.”
“Oh! they are comfort sufficient, believe me; besides, they do not debar us from prudent measures and precautions in a temporal point of view.”
“Well, child, you are a visionary, I always knew that; it remains to be seen if you can be a stoic.”
“What need of that, dear mother? Stoicism is not obedience nor resignation.”
Here a light step was heard, and the half-open door was pushed quickly back. A little girl, about nine years old, ran in with flushed face, and, holding in her hands a velvet casket, cried out in gleeful voice:
“O mother! sister! see! I got leave to bring this in myself. It has just come from the jeweller's, just as my father ordered it!”
And she opened the casket, displaying a wonderful parure of opals and diamonds, exquisitely and artistically wrought. Señora Cristalar turned away impatiently, saying to the child: