Teodoro Golfin did not waste his time at Socartes. The first day after his arrival he spent several hours in his brother's laboratory, and during the following days he went from one part of the mines to another, examining and admiring all he saw—here the awful might of natural forces, and there the power and enterprise of human skill. At night, when all was still in the busy village, and nothing was awake but the snorting furnaces, the worthy doctor, who was an enthusiastic musician, listened with delight to his sister-in-law's piano; SeÑora SofÍa, was Don CÁrlos' wife, but their children were all dead.

The two brothers were devotedly attached to each other. Born in the humblest rank of life, they had struggled hard in early youth to rise above ignorance and poverty, often on the point of giving way to the difficulties that beset them; but the impetus of manly determination was so strong in them, that at length, gasping for breath, they reached the longed-for land, rising superior to the beating waves in which vulgar souls splash and struggle in a perpetual state of shipwreck.

Teodoro, who was the eldest, was a medical man before CÁrlos was qualified as an engineer, and he helped him to the utmost so long as the younger brother needed it, and when he saw him fairly started, he took the step to which his enterprising spirit had long aspired, and set out for South America. There he practised with other celebrated physicians, gaining fame and wealth. After a short visit at home, in Spain, he returned to the New World, and even after a second voyage home he went back again; but during each of these expeditions he made a short tour in Europe to avail himself of the advances made in ophthalmic science which he particularly cultivated.

He was a man of unpolished manners, dark and with an expression at once intelligent and sensual; his lips were thick, his skin opaque and hairy, his eyes bright and keen; his frame was robust and his constitution sound, though somewhat injured by the South American climate. His large, round face, his prominent brow, his short, rebellious hair, the flash of his eyes and his thick, square hands, had led to his being spoken of as "the black lion." In truth, he was like a lion, and like the king of beasts, he never lost an opportunity of asserting the estimation in which he held himself. However, this vanity of a really distinguished man was the most pardonable of vanities, for it consisted chiefly in his persistently displaying his two great titles of fame and honor, namely: his devotion to surgery and the lowness of his origin. He spoke incorrectly, from his utter inability to elaborate phrases with ease and elegance. His rapid and broken sentences followed the course of his ideas, which were as swift as the electric spark.

"We," Teodoro would say, "although we have sprung from the grass by the way-side, which is the lowest origin conceivable, have grown into stalwart trees. Long live labor and human enterprise! I cannot but think that we Golfins, though Heaven knows where we came from, must have some English blood in our veins. Even our name seems to me to be of purely Saxon origin. I give it this etymology, Gold-find, or, as you may say, Gold-finders. Well, and my brother finds it in the bowels of the earth, while I find it in that marvellous miniature universe: the human eye."

At the period of our story he had just arrived via New York and Liverpool, and, as he declared, he now meant to remain at home; but no one believed it, for he had said so many times before and had not kept his word.

His brother CÁrlos was a gentler being, placid, studious, a slave to his duties, and devoted to mineralogy and metallurgy to the point of caring far more for these two branches of learning than for his wife's society. But the couple lived, nevertheless, in perfect harmony; or, as Teodoro said, in an isomorphous state, crystallizing on the same system. As for himself, when matrimony was spoken of, he would say:

"To me, marriage would be an epigenesis, a pseudo-morphous crystallization, that is to say, a mode of crystallization which would not harmonize with my nature."

SofÍa was a very good woman, who had been very handsome, but whose beauty was daily losing character and expression from her unfortunate tendency to stoutness. She had been told that an atmosphere charged with coal smoke had a tendency to reduce fat, and for this reason she had come to live at the mines, without ever leaving them the whole year through. The horrible air, charged with dust, calamine and smoke, annoyed her much however. She had no child alive, and her principal occupation consisted in playing the piano and in organizing societies of benevolent ladies for giving the poor help in their homes, and for maintaining hospitals and schools.

At Madrid, for many years her energy had been prodigious, a real model for all who feel prompted to acts of charity. With the help of two or three ladies of rank, equally devoted to their humble and suffering neighbors, she had organized more than twenty dramatic performances, and as many fancy balls, six bull-fights and two cock-fights, all for the benefit of the poor.

Among her other manias, which were apt to be but transient, however, was one which perhaps is less commendable than that for helping the needy, and which consisted in surrounding herself with dogs and cats, devoting herself to these animals with an affection really worthy to be called love. Lately, since she had lived at Socartes, she had kept a toy-terrier which had been brought to her as a commission from England by Ulises Buli, the head of the machinery department. This was a delicate and slender creature, as tricky and amusing as a child. It was called LÍli, and had cost a small fortune in London—as dogs go.

On fine days the trio walked out together; when it was wet they played and sang, for SofÍa had a modest pipe which, at Socartes, passed for singing. The deputy engineer had a deep bass voice, and Teodoro likewise was basso profondo. CÁrlos could sing but a little higher, so that the whole effect was somewhat like a priestly choir, in which SofÍa's treble came out as if she were a priestess being carried off to be immolated. All the pieces they sang were—or at any rate sounded like—priests offering a sacrifice, and a priestess being sacrificed.

On the days when they walked far they took with them a sort of picnic afternoon meal. One evening—it was at the end of September, and six days after the doctor's arrival at the mines—the party were returning homewards in the following order: LÍli, SofÍa, Teodoro, CÁrlos. The path was too narrow to allow of their walking two and two. LÍli wore a little sky-blue coat or gaberdine with his mistress's initials worked upon it; SofÍa carried her parasol like a gun over her shoulder, and Teodoro had his stick in precisely the same position with his hat hanging on the end of it; it was one of his favorite whims to walk out bare-headed. They were passing above La Trascava when LÍli, leaving the path, with his elastic little legs like springs, began to run on the turf that covered the slope to the chasm. First he ran, but then he slipped on the grass. SofÍa gave a cry of terror. Her first impulse, prompted by an almost maternal feeling, was to run after the little beast that was in no real danger; but her husband stopped her, saying: "The devil may have LÍli if he wants him—but he will come back. It is impossible to go down, the turf here is so slippery."

"LÍli, LÍli," cried SofÍa, hoping that her touching appeal would arrest the creature on the road to perdition, and bring him back to the path of virtue and duty. But the tenderest adjurations had no effect on the rebellious soul of LÍli, who went lower and lower. From time to time he looked up at his mistress with his bright, black eyes, which seemed to say: "For mercy's sake do not be so foolish."

At the large, moss-grown, white rock, which lay like a lid at the very mouth of the chasm, LÍli stopped. All stood with their eyes fixed on the spot, and they at once perceived something moving there. They supposed it to be some beast of prey hiding behind the rock; but SofÍa gave another shriek of astonishment rather than of terror, and exclaimed:

"It is Nela.—Nela what are you doing there?"

On hearing her name called, the girl appeared greatly disturbed, and colored deeply.

"What are you doing there, mad child?" repeated the lady. "Take up LÍli and bring him back to me. Heaven have mercy on us! but what next will that creature be doing? Just look at the place she has put herself in! It is all your fault that LÍli went down there—what an example to set the poor little animal. It is all your fault that he behaved in this naughty, wilful way."

"That child is a perfect limb of mischief," said Don CÁrlos to his brother. "Only look at the place she has got to."

While, on the top of the slope, they were thus discussing her, Nela, down at the bottom, was trying to catch LÍli, who, more wilful and daring than he had ever been before in the whole course of his monotonous existence, constantly eluded her grasp. His mistress shouted to him in vain to "be good and behave himself," while he, ignoring the most elementary principles of duty, went on leaping and frisking, looking up at her, from time to time, with consummate impudence, as though to say: "My good lady, just go on with your walk and leave me in peace."

At last, however, the sportive little beast got entangled among the briars which grew in the hollow, and there his little great-coat got him into dire trouble; the poor dog, finding it impossible to escape from the brushwood, began to bark lamentably for help.

"He will be lost, he will be killed!" wailed the SeÑora. "Nela, Nela, if you will only save him, I will give you a fine, big dog. Save him—go carefully—hold fast."

Nela went boldly to the rescue; setting her foot on the brambles and stout-stemmed creepers that grew over the rift, and holding on by one hand to the rock, she put out the other to take hold of LÍli's tail, by which she pulled him out of the tangle in which he had been caught. Then, patting and coaxing him, she mounted in triumph to the top of the slope.

"It is your fault, all your fault," said SofÍa crossly, and boxing the dog's ears very gently. "What on earth made you go down into that hole—you know he goes after you wherever he finds you—hussy that you are!"

And then she kissed her recovered treasure and gave him one or two mild slaps, and after having assured herself that his precious skin was whole, she pulled his little coat straight, which had got dragged over his head, and gave him to Nela, saying:

"Take him, and carry him in your arms, for he must be tired, and such a long scamper may do him harm. But take care of him—go on in front.—Take great care of him—you see I am close behind to keep an eye on you."

The family party set out again, with Nela leading the way. LÍli looked at his mistress over Nela's shoulder, and seemed to say: "My good mistress, what a simpleton you are!"

Teodoro Golfin had said not a word during the whole of LÍli's agitating escapade, but when they had started on their way once more and were crossing the fields, where the three could walk abreast without inconvenience, the doctor said to his brother's wife:

"I cannot but think, dear SofÍa, that you are unreasonably devoted to the little dog. To be sure a dog that cost two hundred duros, is indeed a dog among dogs. Still, I cannot but ask myself how it is that you have spent time and money in making a great-coat for his highness the terrier, while it has never occurred to you to buy a pair of shoes for Nela."

"Shoes for Nela!" exclaimed SofÍa laughing. "What for, I should like to know. She would have worn them through in two days. You may laugh at me as much as you please—well, I admit that my affection for LÍli amounts to an extravagance; still, you cannot accuse me of want of charity.—Nor indeed, I must say, should I ever allow you to take such a liberty," and as she spoke she drew herself up with a solemn look of offended dignity. "As to knowing how to exercise charity with due prudence and judgment, I believe I may hold my own with any one, be it whom it may—for charity does not consist merely in giving without rhyme or reason, not knowing whether your alms are well or ill-bestowed. Do you suppose you can teach me anything? My dear Teodoro, I am quite as experienced in such matters as you are in the treatment of eyes."

"I know, I know, my dear.—You have done wonders. You need not tell me for the fiftieth time of all the dramatic entertainments, balls and bull-fights, you have got up for the benefit of the poor, nor of the lotteries, which have brought in large sums; though, after providing food for any number of idle vagabonds, there has been but a small fraction left for the sick and suffering! All these facts only go to prove to my mind the singular state of a society, which cannot be charitable without dancing, bull-fights or lottery tickets.—No, we need not discuss all that; I know and admire those heroic achievements; they have their good side, and that not a small one. But you and your gay friends very rarely put yourself in connection with any poor soul, to learn from his own lips the cause and history of his misery, or to discern what kind of wretchedness it is that oppresses him—for there are, actually, some troubles so extraordinary that the gift of a few coppers can do nothing to alleviate them, no, nor even a morsel of bread."

"Here we have our philosopher well astride on his hobby," said SofÍa spitefully. "Pray how do you know what I have ever done, or what I ought to do?"

"Nay, do not be vexed," said Golfin; "for all my discourse tends to a single point, and that is that Nela should have shoes."

"Very well, then to-morrow morning I will buy her a pair."

"No—for I will buy them myself this evening. Do not poach on my preserves, SeÑora."

"Here—Nela," cried the lady, seeing that she had gone some distance ahead. "Do not go so fast; keep in sight that I may see what you are about."

"Poor little creature!" said her husband. "Who could guess she was sixteen years old!"

"She is dreadfully stunted, miserable little thing!" exclaimed SofÍa. "I cannot help asking, why God should permit such creatures to live? And again I ask myself, what in the world can be done for her? Nothing—nothing, but to feed and clothe her after a fashion—but you see, she tears everything she puts on. She cannot labor because she faints away—she has not strength enough to do any kind of work. She skips from stone to stone, or climbs the trees, playing and chattering the whole day long and singing like the birds; what clothes she has are soon reduced to rags...."

"And yet," said CÁrlos, "I have noticed that she is very intelligent. There is a great deal of acuteness and cleverness under that simple exterior and wild rusticity. No, no, Nela is no fool by a long way. If any one had taken the trouble to teach her anything, she would have learnt it better, perhaps, than most children. Would you believe it? Nela has a great imagination; but lacking, as she does, the most rudimentary knowledge, it has of course, made her sentimental and superstitious."

"In point of fact she is in the condition of all primitive races," said Teodoro. "She is at the pastoral stage of civilization."

"Only yesterday," CÁrlos went on, "I was passing by La Trascava and I saw her sitting exactly where we found her again just now. I called her and made her come to me, and I asked her what she was doing there; and with the most perfect simplicity she told me she was talking with her mother.—You know, perhaps, that Nela's mother threw herself into that chasm."

"That is to say that she killed herself," said SofÍa. "She was a woman of bad character and worse feeling, from all I have heard of her. CÁrlos was not living here then, but they say she drank like a stoker. And I ask you: Do these vile creatures, who end a life of sin by committing the greatest crime of all—Suicide—deserve any pity from the human race? There are things too horrible to contemplate—wretches that ought never to have been born. Teodoro may argue as much as he likes, but I cannot help asking you...."

"Ask nothing, my dear sister," said Teodoro warmly. "For I could only reply that the suicide deserves our deepest and fullest pity. So far as abuse goes, heap it on her by all means, and as much as you please; but at the same time it might be as well to enquire what were the causes that brought her to such a fearful extremity of desperation—and I may add that if society had not wholly abandoned her and left her no way out but the yawning door of that hideous abyss which seemed to invite her...."

"Abandoned by society! Well, some must be ..." said SofÍa flippantly. "Society cannot take care of every one. Look at the statistics of population—only look, and you will see how many poor there are to provide for. Besides, supposing society does overlook some—what is religion for?"

"I am speaking of those poor wretches who add to all their other miseries, ignorance, which is the greatest of all. An ignorant soul, debased and superstitious, has none but the vaguest and absurdest ideas of God. The sense of something Great and Unknown, instead of withholding him, impels him to crime. It is rarely indeed that the thought of religion is of any good to those who vegetate in stolid ignorance. No intelligent friend ever goes near them, neither master nor priest; the only superior they ever come into contact with, is the judge who tries them.

"It is strange to see how inexorably you condemn what, after all, is your own work!" he went on, twisting the stick on which his hat was still mounted. "You stand looking straight before you, seeing at the very threshold of your own comfortable homes a crowd of neglected creatures, deprived of everything that childhood needs, from parents to playthings—you see them, I say, without its ever occurring to you to raise them an inch in the world, by telling them that they too are human beings, and giving them some of the ideas they so deplorably lack, without ever dreaming of ennobling them by lifting them out of their brutalizing, mechanical toil, to some intelligent work; you see them dwelling in filthy hovels, ill-fed, sinking lower day by day in their savage squalor, and it never occurs to you to spare for them a little of the comfort and luxury that surround you! You save all your energies to declaim against murder, robbery and suicide, without ever reflecting that you are, in fact, keeping open school for these three crimes."

"You seem to forget that there are houses of refuge, hospitals, asylums ..." said SofÍa tartly. "Read statistics, Teodoro, and you will see the number of miserable creatures.... Read statistics."

"I do not read statistics, my dear sister, and your statistics count for nothing with me. Asylums are good—not that they can ever solve the great problem of orphanage. A hapless orphan, dropped in the streets or in the fields, bereft of all personal affection, and cared for only by a town council—rarely, indeed, is the vacuum filled which yawns in his soul for the love of a parent—not to speak of the vacuum where self-respect, honor, and responsibility ought to be, and so rarely are found. And on that point I have an idea of my own—but, perhaps, it will appear to you absurd...."

"Tell us, at any rate."

"The problem of orphanhood, and the miseries of infancy, will never be completely and finally solved, any more than the rest of our great social problems; still, it will be lightened when custom, supported by law—yes, by law, you see I am in earnest—when custom and law insist that every orphan, whatever its birth—do not laugh—has a right to claim adoption by some married couple in easy circumstances, and who have no children. By this plan, there will be no childless parents, and no fatherless children."

"Yes, by this plan," retorted SofÍa, "we should be parents to Nela!"

"And why not?" said Teodoro. "At the same time you would not waste two hundred duros in buying a dog, nor the livelong blessed day in talking nonsense to his highness, Master LÍli."

"And why are rich bachelors to be exempt under this delightful law? Why should not they also be burthened, each with his orphan?"

"I have no objection ..." said the doctor; he was looking at the ground. "But what is this? Blood?"

They all looked down, and at regular intervals they saw small spots of blood.

"Mercy!" cried SofÍa, covering her eyes. "It is Nela—see, it is where she has trodden; these are her footmarks."

"Oh yes! I see. It was when she went into the brambles to fetch your precious dog. Nela, come here."

Nela, whose right foot was bleeding a good deal, came hobbling back again.

"Give me my poor LÍli," said the lady, taking the dog out of the ragged child's arms. "Do not hurt him; does it hurt you much? Poor little thing.—Oh! how it is bleeding.—I cannot bear to look at it." And SofÍa turned her back to spare her sensitive nerves, hugging LÍli more closely.

"Let us see what has happened," said Teodoro, lifting Nela up and seating her on a high stone that was at hand. Then, putting on his spectacles, he said: "It is quite a trifle, only a few scratches; there is a thorn in here I rather think.—That hurts you? Yes, just so, here is the villain.—Wait a minute. Now, SofÍa if you cannot look on at a surgical operation, you had better walk on."

While his sister went slowly forward to save her nervous system this terrible shock, Golfin took a small case out of his pocket and a pair of tweezers out of the case, and in less than a winking the thorn was extracted.

"That is a brave little woman," he said to Nela, who had not even winced. "Now we will tie this foot up." And he bound it round with his handkerchief. Marianela jumped down to walk and CÁrlos offered her his hand.

"No, no—come here," said Teodoro. He took the little girl under the arms, and with a rapid and dexterous twist perched her on his right shoulder.

"If you do not feel safe hold on to my hair," he said. "It will not come off. Now, you must carry the stick with the hat."

"What a ridiculous sight!" said SofÍa, in fits of laughter as they came up with her. "Teodoro, with Nela on his shoulder, and then the stick and Gessler's hat on the top...."