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“Well, then,” said Chinita, deliberately, prolonging the impatience of her supplicant, while the tears in the dark gray eyes lifted to her own moved her, “I went through the cornfield. I drove Pepé back when he wanted to go with me. Oh, how afraid that big boy is of me! Yes, I went through the corn,—oh, it is so high, so high, I thought it was the very wood where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza met the robbers; but I was not afraid. And then I came to the beanfield, and oh, niña! I meant to go again this very day, and bring an armful of the sweet blossoms to Our Lady, and I forgot it!” clasping her hands penitently.

“And well for thee that thou didst,” exclaimed Chata, “or a pretty rating my father would have given thee! He says it is enough to make the Blessed Virgin vexed for a year to see the good food-blossoms wasted, when there are millions of flowers God only meant for her and the bees. But, Chinita, I would I were a bee, to make thee cry as I wish! Thou art slower than ever to-day. Tell me, tell me, what didst thou next?”