"
"I could tell what it is," said Margarita, her old pertness coming
uppermost for a moment; "but I've got no more to say, now the
Senorita's lying on her bed, with the face she's got. It's enough to
break your heart to look at her. I could just go down on my knees
to her for all I've said; and I will, and to Saint Francis too! She's
going to be with him before long; I know she is."
"No," said the wiser, older Marda. "She is not so ill as you think.
She is young. It's the heart's gone out of her; that's all. I've been
that way myself. People are, when they're young."
"I'm young!" retorted Margarita. "I've never been that way."
"There's many a mile to the end of the road, my girl," said Marda,
significantly; "and 'It's ill boasting the first day out,' was a proverb
when I was your age!"
Marda had never been much more than half-way fond of this own
child of hers. Their natures were antagonistic. Traits which, in
Margarita's father, had embittered many a day of Marda's early
married life, were perpetually cropping out in Margarita, making
between the mother and daughter a barrier which even parental
love was not always strong enough to surmount.
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