"
"Jesus! Maria! Jose! and all the family! Go thou with God! We cannot
trade. Sooner than sell for less than eight reals I will raise the cover
of my brains! Go thou! It is eight of the morning, and still thou
dreamest."
She lays down the scarf reluctantly, saying, "Five?"
But the outraged mercer snorts scornfully, "Eight is my last word! Go
to!"
She moves away, thinking how well that scarf would look in the Apollo
Gardens, and casts over her shoulder a Parthian glance and bid, "Six!"
"Take it! It is madness, but I cannot waste my time in bargaining."
Both congratulate themselves on the operation. He would have taken five,
and she would have given seven. How trade would suffer if we had windows
in our breasts!
The first days of November are consecrated to all the saints, and to the
souls of all the blessed dead. They are observed in Spain with great
solemnity; but as the cemeteries are generally of the dreariest
character, bare, bleak, and most forbidding under the ashy sky of the
late autumn, the days are deprived of that exquisite sentiment that
pervades them in countries where the graves of the dead are beautiful.
There is nothing more touching than these offerings of memory you see
every year in Mont Parnasse and Pere-la-Chaise. Apart from all beliefs,
there is a mysterious influence for good exerted upon the living by the
memory of the beloved dead. On all hearts not utterly corrupt, the
thoughts that come by the graves of the departed fall like dew from
heaven, and quicken into life purer and higher resolves.
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