Agonde rose early on the following morning, and descended shortly afterward to his shop, leaving his guests wrapped in their slumbers, and Carmen charged, the moment they should stir, to pour the chocolate into their mouths. The apothecary desired to enjoy the effect produced in the town by Don Victoriano's sojourn in his house. He was reclining in his leather-covered easy-chair when he saw Tropiezo riding past on his gray mule, and called out to him:

"Hello! Hello! Where are you bound for so early?"

"For Doas, man. I have not a minute to spare." And saying this the doctor alighted from his mule, which he tied to an iron ring fastened in the wall.

"Is the case so urgent?"

"Urgent? That it is. The old woman, the grandmother of Ramon, the confectioner. It appears she has already received the last sacrament."

"And it is only now they have sent for you?"

"No; I went to see her yesterday, and I applied two dozen leeches, that drew their fill of blood from her. She looked like a dying kid; she was very weak, and as thin as a wafer. Perhaps if I had given her something that I thought of, instead of applying leeches——"

"Ah! a trip," interrupted Agonde maliciously.

"Life is a series of trips," responded the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. "And upstairs?" he added, raising his eyes interrogatively to the ceiling.

"Snoring like princes."

"And he—how does he look?" asked Don Fermin, lowering his voice and dwelling on every word.

"He?" repeated Agonde, following his example. "So-so. Oldish. And very gray."

"But what is the matter with him? Let us hear. For as to being sick, he is that."

"He has—a new disease—a very strange one, one of the latest fashion." And Agonde smiled maliciously.

"New?"

Agonde half-closed his eyes, bent toward Tropiezo, and whispered something in his ear.

Tropiezo burst into a laugh; suddenly he looked very serious, and tapping his nose repeatedly with his forefinger:

"I know, I know," he said emphatically. "And the waters here, and some others in France, are the only cure for that disease. If he drinks a few glasses from the spring, he will be himself again."

Tropiezo emitted his dictamen leaning on the counter, forgetful of the mule that was stamping impatiently at the door.

"And the SeÑora—what does she say of her husband's state of health?" he suddenly asked, with a wink.

"What should she say of it, man? Probably she does not know that it is serious."

A look of derision lighted up the inexpressive features of the physician; he glanced at Agonde and smothering another burst of laughter, began:

"The SeÑora—"

"Chut!" interrupted the apothecary furiously. The whole Comba family were making an irruption into the shop through the small door of the porch. Mother and daughter formed a charming group, both wearing wide-brimmed hats of coarse straw adorned with enormous bows of flame-colored bunting. Their Écru cotton gowns embroidered with red braid completed the rustic character of their costumes, reminding one of a bunch of poppies and straw. The girl's luxuriant dark hair hung loose over her shoulders, and the fair locks of the mother curled in a tangled mass under the shade of her broad-brimmed hat. Nieves did not wear gloves nor was there visible on her face a trace of powder, or of any other of the cosmetics whose use is imputed unjustly by the women of the provinces to the Madridlenians; on the contrary, her rosy ears and neck showed signs of energetic friction with the towel and cold water. As for Don Victoriano, the ravages made in his countenance by care and sickness were still more apparent in the morning light; it was not, as Agonde had said, age that was visible there; it was virility, but tortured, exhausted, wounded to death.

"Why! Have you had chocolate already?" asked Agonde, in confusion.

"No, friend Saturnino, nor shall we take it, with your permission, until we return. Don't trouble yourself on our account. VictoriniÑa has ransacked your pantry—your closets——"

The child half opened a handkerchief which she held by the four corners, disclosing a provision of bread, cake, and the cheese of the country.

"At least let me bring you a whole cheese. I will go see if there is not some fresh bread, just out of the oven——"

Don Victoriano objected—let him not be deprived of the pleasure of going to breakfast in the poplar-grove near the spring, just as he had done when a boy. Agonde remarked that those articles of food were not wholesome for him, to which Tropiezo, scratching the tip of his ear, responded sceptically:

"Bah! bah! bah! Those are new-fangled notions. What is wholesome for the body—can't they understand that—is what the body craves. If the gentleman likes bread—and for your malady, SeÑor Don Victoriano, there is nothing like the waters here. I don't know why people go to give their money to those French when we have better things at home than any they can give us."

The Minister looked at Tropiezo with keen interest depicted on his countenance. He called to mind his last visit to Sanchez del Abrojo and the contraction of the lips with which the learned practitioner had said to him:

"I would send you to Carlsbad or to Vichy, but those waters are not always beneficial. At times they hasten the natural course of a disease. Rest for a time, and diet yourself—we will see how you are when you return in the autumn." And what a look Sanchez del Abrojo put on when he said this! An impenetrable, sphinx-like expression. The positive assertion of Tropiezo awoke tumultuous hopes in Don Victoriano's breast. This village practitioner must know a great deal from experience, more perhaps than the pompous doctors of the capital.

"Come, papa," said the child impatiently, pulling him by the sleeve.

They took the path toward the grove. Vilamorta, naturally given to early rising, was more full of activity at this hour than in the afternoon. The shops were open, the baskets of the fruit-venders were already filled with fruit. Cansin walked up and down his establishment with his hands in his pockets, affecting to have noticed nothing, so as not to be obliged to bid good-morning to Agonde and acknowledge his triumph. Pellejo, covered with flour, was haggling with three shopkeepers from Cebre, who wanted to buy some of his best wheat. Ramon, the confectioner, was dividing chocolate into squares on a large board placed on the counter and rapidly stamping them with a hot iron before they should have time to cool.

The morning was cloudless and the sun was already unusually hot. The party, augmented by GarcÍa and Genday, walked through orchards and cornfields until they reached the entrance to the walk. Don Victoriano uttered an exclamation of joy. It was the same double row of elms bordering the river, the foaming and joyous Avieiro, that ran on sparkling in gentle cascades, washing with a pleasant murmur the rocks, worn smooth by the action of the current. He recognized the thick osier plantations; he remembered all his longings of the day before and leaned, full of emotion, on the parapet of the walk. The scene was almost deserted; half a dozen melancholy and bilious-looking individuals, visitors to the springs, were walking slowly up and down, discussing their ailments in low tones, and eructating the bicarbonate of the waters. Nieves, leaning back on a stone bench, gazed at the river. The child touched her on the shoulder, saying:

"Mamma, the young man we saw yesterday."

On the opposite bank Segundo GarcÍa was standing on a rock, absorbed in meditation, his straw hat pushed far back on his head, his hand resting on his hip, doubtless with the purpose of preserving his equilibrium in so dangerous a position. Nieves reproved the little girl, saying:

"Don't be silly, child. You startled me. Salute the gentleman."

"He is not looking this way. Ah! now he is looking. Salute him, you, mamma. He is taking off his hat, he is going to fall! There! now he is safe."

Don Victoriano descended the stone steps leading to the spring. The abode of the naiad was a humble grotto—a shed supported on rough posts, a small basin overflowing with the water from the spring, some wretched hovels for the bathers, and a strong and sickening odor of rotten eggs, caused by the stagnation of the sulphur water, were all that the fastidious tourist found there. Notwithstanding this, Don Victoriano's soul was filled with the purest joy. In this naiad he beheld his youth, his lost youth—the age of illusions, of hopes blooming as the banks of the Avieiro. How many mornings had he come to drink from the fountain, for a jest, to wash his face with the water, which enjoyed throughout the country the reputation of possessing extraordinary curative virtue for the eyes. Don Victoriano stretched out his hands, plunged them into the warm current, feeling it slip through his fingers with delight, and playing with it and caressing it as one caresses a loved being. But the undulating form of the naiad escaped from him as youth escapes from us—without the possibility of detaining it. Then the ex-Minister felt a thirst awaken in him to drink the waters. Beside him on the edge of the basin was a glass; and the keeper, a poor old man in his dotage, presented it to him with an idiotic smile. Don Victoriano drank, closing his eyes, with indescribable pleasure, enjoying the mysterious water, charmed by the magic arts of memory. When he had drained the glass he drew himself up and ascended the stairs with a firm and elastic step. VictoriniÑa, who was breakfasting on bread and cheese in the avenue, was astonished when her father took a piece of bread from her lap, saying gayly:

"We are all God's creatures."

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