Once, as Don Carlos came to pick up his little daughter, after the whirling top had broken in two and each half had rolled laughing on the ground, Pilarica clasped her arms tight about his neck, exclaiming: “Dearest father, are we not the very happiest people in all the world!” But he hastily thrust an official-looking envelope into his pocket and, for his only answer, shut the shining eyes with kisses. VII THE GEOGRAPHY GENTLEMAN Rafael woke three times that night and put out his hand to his father’s hammock, only to find it empty. Listening intently, he would hear measured steps pacing up and down at the further end of the garden. The third time, he ventured to call, and the steps quickened their beat and came toward him. “Anything amiss, my son?” asked Don Carlos, stooping over the cot. “I keep waking up and missing you,” confessed Rafael, half ashamed. “Isn’t it very late?” “Yes, or very early, as one may like to call it,” answered Don Carlos, looking to the east, where a pearly gleam was already stealing up the sky. “But I will turn in now, if your rest depends on mine. A youngster like you should make but one sleep of it the whole night long, and not lie with eyes as wide open as a rabbit’s.” The next morning Tia Marta noticed that Don Carlos had a haggard look and that, when he returned from his walk with Rodrigo, his face was grave and anxious. “The master’s furlough must be nearly up,” she remarked to the cat, with whom she was in the habit of holding long conversations, “or he worries about the new conscription, fearing for the _señorito_. But it is not our bonny Rodrigo who would draw a lot for the soldiering. He is ever the son of good-luck. And yet--ah, well! well! Each man sneezes as God pleases. As for you and me, Roxa, we will not be troubling the master with questions. Some broths are the worse for stirring.” When Don Carlos, however, came upon Rafael and Pilarica running races in the garden, his bearing was so gay that they mischievously barred his passage, standing across the walk, hand in hand, and singing: “Potatoes and salt must little folks eat, While the grown-up people dine Off marmalade, peanuts and oranges sweet, With cocoanut milk for wine. On the ground do we take our seat; We’re at your feet, we’re at your feet.” As they suited the action to the words, he bent and lightly knocked the black heads together, saying merrily: “What a pity that nobody wants to spend the day with me in Granada!” “A whole day!” “In Granada!” And the madcaps, wild with glee, flashed about the fragrant garden more swiftly than the swallows, whose _chirurrí_, _chirurrí_, _chicurrí_, _Beatriiiiíz_, Pilarica mocked so truly that her father could not always tell which was child and which was bird.