YEARS ago in the Calle de Librerías, in a little corner near the Cuesta de Luján, there stood a silversmith’s shop, with an awning stretched over the doorway, a very narrow show-case in which a number of rosaries, rings, medals, and crosses were displayed, and a miserable half-obliterated sign with these words: “Salvador’s Shop.” From one end of this sign, symbolically, hung a pair of pasteboard scales.

Salvador, the proprietor of this silversmith’s shop, was a wealthy bachelor who had lived with a sister for many years before her death.

At the time of my story, Don Andrés, as the silversmith was called, was a man of some sixty years, small, clean-shaven, with white hair, rosy cheeks, clear eyes, and smiling lips. He resembled a silver medal.

With all his sweet, beatific countenance, Don Andrés was at heart, an egoist. Possessing little intelligence and less courage, life made a coward of him. He had an idea that things advanced too rapidly, and was, therefore, an enemy to all innovations. Any change whatever, even if it were beneficial, disturbed him profoundly.

“We have lived like this so far,” he would say, “and I can see no necessity for any change.”

Don Andrés Salvador was equally conservative in his[106] business: all he had was an ability for work that required patience. Rosaries, crosses, rings, and medals left his house by the gross, but everything manufactured in his shop was always the same; unchanged, and unimproved—wrought with the same old-fashioned and decadent taste.

Besides being a conservative, Don Andrés was distrust personified; he did not want any one to see him at work. At that time, repoussé work was still something mysterious and secret, and the silversmith, to prevent any one from surprising his secrets, shut himself up in his own room when he was about to make something of importance, and there worked unseen.

One morning when Don Andrés was standing in the doorway of his shop, he saw a girl running toward him along the Calle de la Feria, pursued by an old woman.

His instinct as a law-abiding citizen made him go out and stop the girl.

“Let me go, Se?or,” she cried.

“No. Is that your mother following you?”

“No, she isn’t my mother,” and the child began to cry disconsolately. In a broken voice she told him how she had been ill for some time in a hut on the Calle de la Feria, and how, when she had become well, the mistress of the house had tried to force her to remain as her ward, and how she had escaped.

By this time the old woman had come up behind the girl, and as a group of children began to form around the shop door, the silversmith led the two women inside.

He asked the old woman if what the girl had said was true, and the Celestina in her confusion said that it was, but defended herself by declaring that she had kept the girl because she had not paid for what she had spent on[107] medicines during her illness, and for dresses, stockings, and underclothes with which to clothe her.

The silversmith realized that it was a matter of an infamous exploitation, and whether he was indignant at this, or whether he was touched by the girl’s appearance, the fact is, he said with more vehemence than he was accustomed to use:

“I see, Se?ora Consolación, that you are trying to exploit this child in an evil way. Leave her alone, for she will return your clothes, and go back to your house; for if you don’t, I shall warn the authorities, and you will rest your old bones in jail.”

The old woman, who knew the influence and prestige the silversmith enjoyed in the district, began once more to complain of the great prejudice they had against her, but Don Andrés cut her argument short by saying:

“Either you get out, or I will call the alguacil.”

The Celestina said not another word, but tied her handkerchief about her neck as if she wished to strangle herself with it, and moved off down the street, spouting curses as she went.

The girl and the silversmith were left alone in the shop. He followed the old woman with his eyes as she went screaming along the Calle de la Feria among the noisy people who came running to their doorways as she passed. When she was out of sight, he said to the girl:

“You can go now. She’s gone.”

When she heard this, the girl began to sob again.

“For God’s sake, don’t send me away, Se?or! For God’s sake!”

“I’m not going to send you away. You may stay a while if you wish.”

“No. Let me stay here always. You are good. I’ll[108] be your servant, and you won’t have to give me a thing for it.”

“No, no—I cannot,” replied the silversmith.

Then the child knelt on the floor, and with her arms thrown wide apart, said:

“Se?or! Se?or! Let me stay!”

“No, no. Get up! Don’t be silly.”

“Then if I kill myself,” she cried as she regained her feet, “it will be your fault.”

“Not mine.”

“Yes, yours,” and the girl, changing her tone, added, “But you don’t want me to go. You won’t throw me out; you’ll let me live here; I’ll serve you, and take care of you; I’ll be your servant, and you needn’t give me a thing for it; and I will thank you and pray for you.”

“But, what will people say?” murmured Don Andrés, who foresaw a complication in his life.

“I swear to you by the Carmen Virgin,” she exclaimed, “that I won’t give them a chance to talk, for nobody shall see me. You’ll let me live here, won’t you?”

“How can I help it! You stick a dagger into one’s heart. We’ll give it a try. But let me warn you about one thing: the first time I notice a failing—even if it is only a man hanging around the house—I’ll throw you out immediately.”

“No one will hang around.”

“Then I shall give you some old clothes this very minute, and you may send those to Se?ora Consolación’s house. Then go to work in the kitchen immediately.”

And so it was done; and Fuensanta, for the girl was Fuensanta, the daughter of El Mojoso, entered the house of the silversmith as a servant, and became, as she had[109] promised, circumspect, submissive, silent and industrious.

Little by little the silversmith grew fond of her; Don Andrés’ sister had been a basilisk, a violent and ill-tempered old maid for whose fits of bad temper he had always suffered. Fuensanta paid the old man delicate attentions to which he was unaccustomed, and he looked forward to an old age in an atmosphere of affection and respect.

“See here,” Don Andrés once said to her, “you must not be separated from your son. Bring the boy here.”

Fuensanta went to Obejo, and returned the following day with the boy. He was three years old, and a regular savage. Fuensanta, who r............