“Yes,” said Mariquilla; “my heart tells me that we have passed the hard part of our life, and that now we shall have peaceful days. The siege will soon be finished; because, according to what my father says, this holding out can be only a matter of days. This morning I went to the Pilar; when I knelt before the Virgin, it seemed to me that our holy Lady looked at me and smiled. Then I came out of the church, my heart was beating with a keen delight. I looked at the sky, and the bombs seemed to me like toys; I looked at the wounded, and it seemed to me that they were all healed; I looked at the people, and could almost believe that they all felt the same happiness which was overflowing my bosom. I do not know how it is with me today, I am so happy. God and the Virgin have surely taken pity on us; and this beating of my heart, this joyous restlessness, without care for what may happen, must mean good fortune after so many tears!”
“All that you say is true,” said Augustine, holding Mariquilla lovingly to him. “Your presentiments are laws; your heart, one with the divine, cannot be deceived. Listening to you, it seems to me as if the troubles that crush us melt away in the air, and I breathe with delight the breath of happiness. I hope that your father will not oppose your marrying me.”
“My father is good,” said Mariquilla. “I believe that if his neighbors in the city had not worried him so much that he would have been kinder. But they cannot bear the sight of him. This afternoon he was badly maltreated again in the cloister of San Francisco, and when he joined me in the Coso he was furious, and swore that he would be revenged. I tried to quiet him, but all in vain. They drive us away from everywhere. He doubled up his fists, and angrily threatened those who were there near us. Afterwards, he ran away and came here. I thought he was coming to see if they had destroyed this house, which is ours. I followed him. He turned towards me as if frightened at hearing my footsteps, and said to me, ‘Stupid meddler, who told you to follow me?’ I answered nothing; but seeing that he advanced to the French lines, as if he meant to cross over, I tried to detain him, and said to him, ‘Father, where are you going?’ Then he answered, ‘Do you know that my friend who served last year in Saragossa, the Swiss Captain Don Carlos Lindener, is in the French army? I am going to see him. I remember that he owes me a certain amount.’ He made me stay here, and went on. I am afraid that if his enemies know that he crossed over into the French lines, they will call him a traitor. I do not know whether it is the great affection that I have for him, but he seems to me incapable of such action. I am afraid though that there is something wrong, and for this reason I long for the end of the siege. Is it not true that it will soon be finished, Augustine?”
“Yes, Mariquilla, it will soon be finished, and we will be married. My father wishes me to marry.”
“Who is your father? What is his name? Is it not time yet to tell me that?”
“You shall know it another time. My father is one of the principal personages in Saragossa, and much beloved. Why wish to know more?”
“Yesterday I tried to inquire. I was curious. I asked several people I know that I met in the Coso, ‘Do you know what gentleman it is who has lost his eldest son?’ But so many are like that, that they only laughed at me.”
“I will reveal it to you in good time, and when in telling it to you I can give you good news with it.”
“Augustine, if I marry you, I wish that you would take me away from Saragossa for several days. I want for a little time to see other houses, other trees, other scenes. I wish to live for some days in places where these things are not, among which I have suffered so much.”
“Yes, Mariquilla, my soul,” exclaimed Montoria, quite carried away; “we will go wherever we please, far away from here, tomorrow even; no, not tomorrow, for the siege will not be raised. Day after tomorrow, in short, sometime, when—God wills it.”
“Augustine,” added Mariquilla, in a sleepy voice, “I wish that, after we return from our journey, that we might rebuild the house where I was born. The cypress-tree is still standing.”
Mariquilla’s head drooped forward, showing that she was half overcome with sleep.
“Do you want to go to sleep, you poor little thing?” my friend said to her, taking her in his arms.
“I have not slept at all for several nights,” replied the girl, closing her eyes. “Anxiety, sorrow, and fear have kept me awake. Tonight weariness overcomes me, and I am so peaceful now that it makes me wish to go to sleep.”
“Sleep in my arms, Mariquilla,” said Augustine; “and may the peace that now fills thy soul not leave thee when thou wakest.”
After a little while, when we thought her sleeping, Mariquilla, half asleep and half
