this advanced stage of refinement, loudly insisted on silence. The families of importance arriving, as usual, after the curtain had risen, came in with as much fuss as if they were passing into the dress-circle of the Royal Theatre, and, be it said, with much more noise, for it is impossible to imagine the horrible sounds with which the backs of the boxes were pushed back, and the seats dropped, as if on purpose to attract attention.

The party now making its pompous entry into one of these boxes remains standing until all wraps are removed, while the eyes of the audience are instantly turned from the stage and fixed upon the newcomers until they are seated. They are the Belinchons. The head of the family is a tall, spare gentleman, with bent shoulders, bald head, small sharp eyes, a large mouth, wreathed with a Mephistophelian smile, disclosing two long even rows of teeth, the masterpiece of a certain dentist, recently established in Sarrio; he has whiskers and mustache, and his age is about sixty.

He is reported to be the richest merchant in the town, being one of the chief importers of codfish on the Biscayan coast. For many years he had the entire monopoly of the wholesale trade of this commodity, not only in the town, but in the provinces, and had thus amassed a considerable fortune.

His wife, Doña Paula—but why does her arrival excite so much talk in the theatre? The good lady, hearing it, trembles, looks confused, and, being unable to collect herself sufficiently to take off her cloak by herself, she is relieved of it by her daughter, who says in her ear:

"Sit down, mama."

Doña Paula sits down, or, to speak more correctly, she drops into a seat, and casts an anxious look at the audience, while her cheeks are suffused with crimson. In vain she tries to collect and calm herself, but the more she tries to keep the blood from rushing to her face the more it mounts to that prominent position.

"Mama, how red you are!" said Venturita, her younger daughter, trying not to laugh.

The mother looked at her with a pained expression.

"Hush, Ventura, hush," said Cecilia.

Doña Paula then murmured: "The child delights in upsetting me," and nearly burst into tears.

At last the audience, wearied of tormenting her with their glances, smiles, and whispers, turned their attention to the stage. Doña Paula's distress gradually diminished, but the traces remained for the rest of the evening.

The cause of the excitement was the velvet mantle, trimmed with fur, that the good lady had donned. It was always like this whenever she appeared for the first time in any fine article of apparel. And this for no other reason than because Doña Paula was not a lady by birth.

She had belonged to the cigarette-maker class. Don Rosendo had made love to her when she was quite a young girl, and then came the birth of Pablito. However, Don Rosendo let five or six years elapse without marrying, not wishing to hear of matrimony, but continuing to pay court to her and assisting her with money, until finally, vanquished more by the love of the boy than the mother, and more than all by the admonitions of his friends, he decided to offer his hand to Paulina.

The town knew nothing of the marriage until it had taken place, secrecy being considered the safest course. From thenceforth the life of the cigarette-maker can be divided into different epochs. The first, which lasted for a year, dated from the time of her marriage until the "mantilla appeared." During this epoch she did not go out much, nor was she often seen in public. On Sundays she attended early mass, and the rest of the time she was shut up in the house. When she decided to don the aforementioned mantilla and attend eleven o'clock mass she was the cynosure of all eyes, in church as well as on her way through the streets; and the event was talked about for eight days afterward.

The second epoch, which lasted three years, was from the "mantilla episode" to that of "the gloves." The sight of such an adornment on the large dark hands of the ex-cigarette-maker produced an indescribable sensation in the feminine element of the neighborhood; in the streets, in church, and on visits, the ladies met each other with the question:

"Have you seen?"

"Yes, yes; I have seen."

And then the tongues were loosed in cruel remarks.

Then came the third epoch, which lasted four years, and ended with the silk dress, which gave almost as much cause of complaint as the gloves, and produced universal indignation in Sarrio.

"Do you really mean to say so, Doña Dolores?"

"Who would have thought it?"

Doña Dolores lowered her eyes with a despairing gesture.

Finally the last epoch, the longest of all, for it lasted six years, terminated (oh horror!) with "the hat." The shudder of disgust that went through the town of Sarrio when Doña Paula appeared one holiday afternoon at the Promenade with a little hat on her head beggars description. It caused quite a sensation: the women of the place made the sign of the cross, as they saw her pass, and remarks were uttered in loud tones so as to reach the person concerned.

"Look, girl, do for goodness' sake, look at the Serena, and see what she has got on her head."

Mention must be made that Doña Paula's mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had all gone by the name of Serena. It is needless to add that even when the cigarette-maker attained to the dignity of señora, she was never by any chance given her proper name.

When the ladies of Sarrio met each other in the street the following day there were no words to express their horror; they could only raise their eyes to heaven, make convulsive gesticulations, and utter, with a groan, the word "Hat!"

So at that deed of daring, only comparable to those of heroes of antiquity, like Hannibal, Cæsar, and Genghis Khan, the town remained crushed and dumfounded for some months. Nevertheless, whenever Doña Paula appeared in public with the abhorred hat upon her head, or with any other departure from her old attire, she was always greeted with a murmur of disapproval. The fault of the matter lay in her never having resented, in public or in private, or even in the sanctum of her own feelings, this malignant treatment of her fellow-townsfolk. She considered it natural and reasonable, and it never occurred to her that it ought not to have been; her ideas of conventionality had never prompted her to rebel against the tyranny of public opinion. She believed in all good faith that in adopting the gloves, the mantilla, or the hat, she had committed a breach of laws both human and divine, and that the murmurs and mocking glances were the just retribution for the infraction. Hence her terror and dismay every time she appeared at the theatre or promenade overwhelmed her with confusion.

"Why, then," it will be said, "did Doña Paula dress herself thus?"

Those who ask such questions are not well versed in the mysteries of the human heart; Doña Paula put on the mantilla, gloves, and hat with the full knowledge of the retribution to come, just as a boy stuffs himself from the sideboard, knowing that he will be punished for the act. Those who have not been brought up in a little town can never know how ardently the hat is desired by the artisan.

It was so with Doña Paula, old, faded, and withered as she was. As a young girl, she had been pretty, but years, her secluded life, to which she could never accustom herself, and, above all, her struggle against public opinion in the adoption of appropriate attire, had prematurely aged her; but she still had beautiful black eyes set in regular and pleasing features.

The first act was nearly over. A fantastic melodrama, the name I do not remember, was being performed, and the company had brought into play all the scenic apparatus at its disposal. The audience was impressed, and received every change of scene with