When the two friends met, after several years, Salomón, as has been said, was a widower. His wife had left him a little girl, who was then three years old. My father found Salomón in great grief and prostration. He offered to take the daughter and educate her with his own children. Salomón finally consented, saying, “She has been my only comfort since Sara’s death, but her being here prevents me from going to India, as I much wish to, both for the sake of my health and on account of a fine business opportunity; since you want her, take her; she shall be your daughter.”
Tears choked the poor man’s voice as he spoke.
In a few days the schooner which was to bear my father to the coasts of Colombia set sail from the Bay of Montego. The light barque spread her sails, like a heron of our forests beginning a long flight. Salomón came to my father’s lodging, carrying María on one arm, and on the other the valise which contained the child’s clothing. She held out her little arms to my father, and Salomón, giving her to his friend, fell into a chair and sobbed aloud. That precious little creature was a sacred trust; my father knew it well, and never forgot it.
I was seven years old when my father came home, and I paid no attention to the presents which he brought me, having no eyes except for that little child, so lovely, pleasant, and smiling. My mother covered her with caresses, and my sisters treated her with the greatest kindness from the moment when my father put her in his wife’s lap and said, “This is Salomón’s daughter, and he has sent her to you.”
In our childish plays María soon learned to speak Spanish, that language so euphonious and captivating in the lovely mouth of a woman, or on the smiling lips of a child.
Six years passed by. Entering my father’s room one afternoon, I heard him weeping; his arms were crossed upon the table, and he was leaning his head upon them. My mother was near him, also in tears, and on her knees María was leaning her head, without understanding this grief, and almost unobservant of her uncle’s moans. A letter had come that day from Kingston, telling of Salomón’s death. I recall but one expression of my father’s that afternoon: “If I am to be bereft of all, without being able to receive their last farewell, why should I ever go back to my native land?”
Alas! his ashes were destined to rest in a foreign land, where the wind of the ocean, on whose beach he had played as a boy, whose expanse he had crossed as an eager young man, could not come to sweep from his grave the dried blossoms of the myrrh-tree and the accumulated dust of years.
But few of those who knew our family then could suspect that María was not the child of my parents. She spoke our language perfectly, was loving, spirited, and intelligent. When my mother used to caress her at the same time with the rest of us, no one could have guessed which one was the orphan.
She was nine years old. Her abundant hair, still a clear chestnut, loosened and rippling down to her delicate waist; her expressive eyes; her voice with a certain melancholy in its tones that ours did not have—such was the image which I carried with me when I went from home; such she was that morning behind the creeper at my mother’s window.
VIII
Early in the evening Emma knocked at my door to summon me to the table. I bathed my face to hide the traces of tears, and changed my clothes to give color to my delay. María was not in the dining-room, and in vain I tried to think what might have made her so late. My father noticed the vacant chair, and asked after her. Emma said that María had had a headache all the afternoon, and had already gone to bed. I endeavored to appear unconcerned, and forced myself to speak with enthusiasm of the great improvements I had found in the property. But it was all useless; my father was more tired than I, and went to his room early; Emma and my mother went to put the children to bed, and to see how María was, for which I thanked them in my heart, with no feeling of surprise at that sense of gratitude.
Although Emma came back to the dining-room, we were not long together there. Felipe and Eloisa, who had got me to play cards with them, accused me of falling asleep. Felipe had in vain besought my mother to be allowed to go with me up the mountain in the morning, and on this account he went away unhappy.
Reflecting in my room, I thought I could guess the reason of María’s indisposition. I remembered the abrupt way I had gone out of the parlor, and how I had answered her so inconsiderately, through my effort to repress my own feelings. I would have given my life a thousand times over to obtain her pardon; but a doubt came to aggravate my distress—could I be sure she loved me? Why, I thought, should I try to believe that she loved as I did? I was unworthy of so much beauty and goodness. I accused myself of blind pride in thinking that I
