A-ro-ró mi niño A-ro-ró mi sol, A-ro-ró pedazos De mi corazon.
Gregory stood on the threshold surveying this domestic scene with manifest pleasure.
"Papa mine, what have you brought me?" cried the child with the kitten.
"Brought you, interested? Stiff whiskers and cold hands to pinch your dirty little cheeks. How is your cold to-night, mother?"
"Yes, son, it is very cold to-night; we knew that before you came in," replied the old dame testily as she drew her chair a little closer to the fire.
"It is useless speaking to her," remarked Ascension. "With her to be out of temper is to be deaf."
"What has happened to put her out?" he asked.
"I can tell you, papa," cried one of the twins. "She wouldn't let me make your cigars to-day, and sat down out-of-doors to make them herself. It was after breakfast when the sun was warm."
"And of course she fell asleep," chimed in Ascension.
"Let me tell it, auntie!" exclaimed the other. "And she fell asleep, and in a moment Rosita's lamb came and ate up the whole of the tobacco-leaf in her lap."
"It didn't!" cried Rosita, looking up from her game. "I opened its mouth and looked with all my eyes, and there was no tobacco-leaf in it."
"That lamb! that lamb!" said Gregory slily. "Is it to be wondered at that we are turning grey before our time--all except Rosita! Remind me to-morrow, wife, to take it to the flock: or if it has grown fat on all the tobacco-leaf, aprons and old shoes it has eaten----"
"Oh no, no, no!" screamed Rosita, starting up and throwing the game into confusion, just when her little brother had made a row and was in the act of seizing on one of her pieces in triumph.
"Hush, silly child, he will not harm your lamb," said the mother, pausing from her task and raising eyes that were tearful with the smoke of the fire and of the cigarette she held between her good-humoured lips. "And now, if these children have finished speaking of their important affairs, tell me, Gregory, what news do you bring?"
"They say," he returned, sitting down and taking the maté-cup from his daughter's hand, "that the invading Indians bring seven hundred lances, and that those that first opposed them were all slain. Some say they are now retreating with the cattle they have taken; while others maintain that they are waiting to fight our men."