eBooks Base 2000

"But why? What has happened?" he asked eagerly.
The girl's manner had changed. Her eyes flashed, and she put her brown
fist on her waist and began to rock from side to side.
"But I'll not go," she said, viciously.
"Go where?" asked the boy.
"Oh, where?" she echoed, impatiently. "Hear me, Francisco. Thou knowest
I am, like thee, an orphan; but I have not, like thee, a parent in the
Holy Church. For, alas," she added, bitterly, "I am not a boy, and have
not a lovely voice borrowed from the angels. I was, like thee, a
foundling, kept, by the charity of the reverend fathers, until Don
Juan, a childless widower, adopted me. I was happy, not knowing and
caring who were the parents who had abandoned me, happy only in the
love of him who became my adopted father. And now"--She paused.
"And now?" echoed Francisco, eagerly.
"And now they say it is discovered who are my parents."
"And they live?"
"Mother of God! no," said the girl, with scarcely filial piety. "There
is some one, a thing, a mere Don Fulano, who knows it all, it seems,
who is to be my guardian.


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