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“And thou hadst better go back,” cried Chinita, grimly, more piqued at being the cause of laughter than pleased at Chata’s penetration; for in choosing her green gown she had had in her mind the habit of green cloth sent by the Duchess to Sancho Panza’s rustic daughter, and had teased and wheedled Pedro into buying her holiday dress of that color,—because when they were reading the story together Chata had called her Sanchica and herself the Duchess, and for many a day they had acted together such a little comedy as even Cervantes never dreamed of, in which they had seemed to live in quite another world than that actually around them. The tale of the “Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance” was a strange text-book for children; yet in it they had contrived to put together the letters learned in the breviary, and with their two heads close bent over the page, these two, as years passed on, had spelled out first the story, then later an inkling of the wit, the fancy, the philosophy which lay deep between the two leathern covers that inclosed the entire secular literature that the house of Don Rafael afforded.