The house of Captain Tiago is sad. All the windows are closed; one scarcely dares make a sound; and nowhere but in the kitchen do they speak aloud. Maria Clara, the soul of the house, is sick in bed. The state of her health could be read on all faces, as our actions betray the griefs of our hearts.
"What do you think, Isabel, ought I to make a gift to the cross at Tunasan, or that at Matahong?" asks the unhappy father. "The cross at Tunasan grows, but that at Matahong perspires. Which do you call the more miraculous?"
Aunt Isabel reflected, nodded her head, and whispered:
"To grow is more miraculous; we all perspire, but we don't all grow."
"That's so, yes, Isabel; but, after all, for wood to perspire--well, then, the best thing is to make offerings to both."
A carriage stopping before the house cut short the conversation. Captain Tiago, followed by Aunt Isabel, ran down the steps to receive the coming guests. They were the doctor, Don Tiburcio de Espadaña, his wife, the Doctora Doña Victorina de Los Reyes de de Espadaña, and a young Spaniard of attractive face and fine appearance.
The doctora wore a silk dress bordered with flowers, and a hat with a large parrot perched among bows of red and blue ribbons. The dust of the journey mingling with the rice powder on her cheeks, exaggerated her wrinkles; as when we saw her at Manila, she had given her arm to her lame husband.
"I have the pleasure of presenting to you our cousin, Don Alfonso Linares de Espadaña," said Doña Victorina, indicating the young man; "the adopted son of a relative of Father Dámaso's, and private secretary of all the ministers----"
The young man bowed low; Captain Tiago barely escaped kissing his hand.
While the countless trunks, valises, and bags are being cared for and Captain Tiago is conducting his guests to their apartments, let us make a nearer acquaintance with these people whom we have not seen since the opening chapters.
Doña Victorina is a woman of forty-five summers, which, according to her arithmetic, are equivalent to thirty-two springs. In her youth she had been very pretty, but, enraptured in her own contemplation, she had looked with the utmost disdain on her numerous Filipino adorers, even scorning the vows of love once murmured in her ears or chanted under her balcony by Captain Tiago. Her aspirations bore her toward another race.