She slightly shrugged her shoulders again, and turned her eyes away with an expression of concern. Suddenly she looked fully at me; her face was dark with a blush that glowed from the roots of her hair to the rim of the collar of her dress; I could not express the meaning in her face at that moment; I felt it without understanding it.
“When I am settled in Madrid, Mr. Fielding, you will come and see me, I hope? Often, I trust, will you visit me? Who more welcome, of all the friends of Aurora de la Cueva, than Señor William Fielding?”
I thanked her, with slight surprise. I had expected, from the looks of her, something very different from this.
“Would it not please you to live in England?” said I.
“No,” she answered vehemently; softening, she added, “my establishment will be in Madrid.”
I was conscious that I changed color. I looked at her hand—at that pretty hand of beringed fingers, on which very often had I admiringly fastened my gaze. When I lifted my eyes, she faintly smiled.
“Your establishment?” said I.
“Yes; my establishment.”
“Do you mean your mother’s establishment?”
“Ave Maria! No. My poor mother! Where is she? Ay, ay me!” she cried, looking up at the sky with a sorrowful, admirably managed roll of her dark eyes. “My mother’s establishment was at Lima, as you have often heard. She broke it up on the death of my father; and, if she be alive—oh, may the Blessed Virgin grant it—she will live with me at Madrid. It was her intention to dwell with us. She is growing in years and has many infirmities, and is unequal to the fatigues and anxieties of an establishment of her own. But of whom am I speaking? She may be dead—she may be dead!”