When she saw him coming up the garden-walk,
leaning on the arm of her Felipe, on the afternoon of the very day
which was the earliest possible day for the Indians to arrive, it was
not strange that she felt, mingled with the joy of her greeting to her
long-loved friend and confessor, a triumphant exultation that the
saints had heard her prayers.
In the kitchen all was bustle and stir. The coming of any guest into
the house was a signal for unwonted activities there,-- even the
coming of Father Salvierderra, who never knew whether the soup
had force-meat balls in it or not, old Marda said; and that was to
her the last extreme of indifference to good things of the flesh.
"But if he will not eat, he can see," she said; and her pride for
herself and for the house was enlisted in setting forth as goodly an
array of viands as her larder afforded, She grew suddenly
fastidious over the size and color of the cabbages to go into the
beef-pot, and threw away one whole saucepan full of rice, because
Margarita had put only one onion in instead of two.
"Have I not told you again and again that for the Father it is always
two onions?" she exclaimed.
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