"Here is ñaltaMartayMaríMenino! Here's Menino!" cried Marta, enthusiastically, as she stood on the top step. "He's very near! Menino! Menino! Come, _tonto_, here! here! Don't you know me?"
Menino, who was only six or eight steps away when he heard his mistress's voice, bent his head gracefully, as if to listen. The sunlight, falling full on him, bathed his yellow plumage, making him contrast so vividly with the red-colored roof that he seemed like a bit of living gold. He hopped thrice or four times, as though he were going to Marta, and said, _Pii_, _pii_.
"Do you want me to try to get him?" asked Ricardo.
"No; hold still a moment; he seems to be coming of his own accord. Menino, Menino! come here, pretty one; come here, come!"
Menino came two or three hops nearer, and seemed to be cocking his head to listen. I don't know what then passed through his brain; something low, and base, and shameful, it must have been, according to the morality of his species, for, forgetting his mistress's tender attentions, her ceaseless caresses, the many bits of chocolate shared with her, the feasts of biscuits, and his overflowing dishes of canary-seed, he cleaned his feathers in her presence with perfect indifference, several times repeated his pii, pii, with affected laziness, and spreading his wings, he launched into space, flying out of sight amid the foliage of the neighboring gardens.
Ricardo mounted to the window, and following the direction indicated by the girl's finger, he looked and looked again, until his eyes pained him, without seeing the slightest sign of anything resembling a canary bird. When he looked at Marta again, he saw a tear rolling down her cheeks.
"Aren't you ashamed to cry for a bird, tonta!"
"You are right!" replied the girl, trying to laugh, and wiping away the tear with her handkerchief.
"But I felt as much affection for him as for a person; yes indeed, for three years I have been taking care of him!"
The dew of grace kept falling copiously on the soul of the eldest daughter of the Elorzas. The Christian virtues flourished in her like mystical roses replete with fragrance, and with the impatience and ardor which characterized all her actions, she continued to mount one by one the rounds on the ladder of perfection leading to heaven. Her deeds of charity and humility not only filled those who lived near her with astonishment, but were bruited about the whole town, serving as an edifying example for young and old, and as a theme of conversation among the clergy. Her fasts and penances, always growing more frequent and severe, increased the enthusiasm and seraphic joy of her soul; but at last they had a naturally weakening effect upon her health. Her delicate constitution began to rebel against so much mortification of the flesh, and to protest at every instant by pains, sometimes in her heart, at others in her stomach, at others in her head, and yet she endured it all with enviable resignation, and did not let it discourage her saintly endeavors. She suffered frequently from fainting fits in which she remained long unconscious, and from severe convulsions; some days she could not retain the food that she ate, and on others she complained of acute headaches. Don Maximo began to prescribe preparations of iron, sea-baths, and wine of quinine, and this treatment brought about some improvement, but not much; the doctor finally declared that unless she entirely changed her mode of life, these attacks would not cease; but it was impossible to persuade her.