Soon after, she thought of another means of degrading the child. Josefina dined at table with the señores. The pompous old Grandee had not consented to this at first, but he at last conceded to the importunities of his wife. Concha, full of spite like her señora, set to intriguing to deprive the foundling of this privilege. Exaggerating what it gave to do, the mess that it made, and the disturbance of the waiting at table, the little girl was finally removed to, and located at, a little table, which was put in the ironing-room near the kitchen. A few days after Amalia, in a fit of bad temper, said that the double service could not be tolerated, and that she was to dine in the kitchen with the servants. Concha sat her on a stool, pushed her a plate of thick soup and a tin spoon saying: "Eat."
The child raised her head in amazement, but seeing the malignant smile in the girl's eyes, she put it down again, and began to eat without any protest whatever. Concha was not pleased at this, for she wanted to see her rebel and cry.
"What is it? Don't you like your spoon? Then, child, you'll have to eat with it as I do, who am quite as good as you. What do you take yourself for, you little fool? Do you think because you wear a fine hat and a cambric chemise you are a young lady? Young ladies don't come in a basket covered over with dirty rags." And so she went on, bursting into sarcastic, insulting laughter until poor Josefina at last began to cry. Although the other servants were not so malignant, they were pleased at the child's humiliation. They ended by taking her part, whilst Concha, relentless and colder and harder than marble, went on persecuting her with the greatest cruelty. A few days later, as Josefina was passing through the ironing-room to the dining-room, she heard Concha say to Maria:
"I say, girl, have you ironed the foundling's clothes?"
She stopped, not knowing of whom they were speaking, and cast an anxious look from one servant to the other, until a simultaneous shout of laughter from them both made her understand that they were speaking of her.
"Why do you call me a foundling?" cried the innocent child, with difficulty repressing her tears. "I will go and tell my godmother."