In this room, which looked more like an oratory than a drawing room, and which opened on a bedroom, the furniture of which was extremely plain, two ladies were seated near a window, and conversing in a low voice, at the moment when the exigencies of our narrative compel us to join them. Of these two, one had passed the age of thirty--that critical period for Spanish women; but although her face was pale as marble, and her features were worn with sorrow, it was easy to perceive that she must have been very lovely once. The person who kept her company was a light-haired, graceful, pale, and delicate girl. She was endowed with the ideal and dreamy beauty which renders painters desperate and which German poets have alone been able to describe. In her calm, pensive features were found again the dreamy, restless, and chaste physiognomy of Goethe's Marguerite, and the intoxicating and impassioned smile of Schiller's pale creations. These two ladies were mother and daughter. Doña Emilia de Saldibar and Doña Diana. Their dress, through its severe simplicity, harmonized perfectly with the expression of sorrow and melancholy spread over their whole persons. They wore long gowns of black velvet, without embroidery or ornaments, fastened round the waist by girdles of the same colour. A rebozo of black lace covered their neck and chest, and could, if necessary, be thrown over their heads, and hide their faces. They were conversing in a low voice, looking out now and then absently into the courtyard, in which were assembled the numerous peons of the hacenderos who had responded to Don Aníbal's summons. "No," Doña Emilia said, "no, my child, it is better to remain silent, for this information is anything but positive." "Still, mother," the young lady answered, "the man seemed thoroughly acquainted with the whole story; and it appears to me, on the contrary--" "You are wrong, Diana," her mother interrupted, with some sternness in her voice. "I know better than you what should be done under the circumstances. Be careful, Niña. You take the affair too much to heart, and let yourself be carried away." The girl blushed, and bit her lips. "You know how I love you, my child," Doña Emilia continued directly; "so do not try to thwart what I do, as you are well aware I have but one object, your happiness, so let me act as I think proper." "My dear mother!" the young lady said affectionately. "Yes," Doña Emilia replied with a cold smile, "I am your dear mother when I yield to your importunities." "Oh, do not say that, mother! You know what deep love I have for you." "Yes I know it, and I know too that I do not alone occupy your heart." Doña Diana turned her head away to hide the blush that suffused her face at this remark; but her mother did not notice this emotion, and continued, as if speaking to herself, instead of addressing her daughter--