morning."

"Ay, run, run. I must finish my letter."

Benicia left the sala and crossing her mother's room entered her own.
From the stout mahogany chest she took white silk stockings and satin
slippers, and sitting down on the floor put them on. Then she opened the
doors of her wardrobe and looked for some moments at the many pretty
frocks hanging there. She selected one of fine white lawn, half covered
with deshalados, and arrayed herself. She took from the drawer of the
wardrobe a mantilla of white Spanish lace, and draped it about her head
and shoulders, fastening it back above one ear with a pink rose. Around
her throat she clasped a string of pearls, then stood quietly in the
middle of the room and looked about her. In one corner was a little
brass bedstead covered with a heavy quilt of satin and lace. The
pillow-cases were almost as fine and elaborate as her gown. In the
opposite corner was an altar with little gold candlesticks and an ivory
crucifix. The walls and floor were bare but spotless. The ugly wardrobe
built into the thick wall never had been empty: Doña Eustaquia's
generosity to the daughter she worshipped was unbounded.

Benicia drew a long hysterical breath and went over to the window. It
looked upon a large yard enclosed by the high adobe wall upon which her
lovers so often had sat and sung to her. No flowers were in the garden,
not even a tree. It was as smooth and clean as the floor of a ballroom.
About the well in the middle were three or four Indian servants
quarrelling good-naturedly. The house stood on the rise of one of the
crescent's horns. Benicia looked up at the dark pine woods on the
hill. What days she had spent there with her mother! She whirled about
suddenly and taking a large fan from the table returned to the sala.