Ferragut felt inclined to laugh and to weep at the same time upon receiving a kiss from, her withered mouth whose down had turned into pin points.

It was the kiss of an old beauty who remembers the gallantry of a youthful lover, the kiss of a childless woman caressing the son she might have had.
"Poor unhappy Carmelo!...

He no longer writes, he no longer reads....
Ay! what will ever become of me ?..." She always spoke of the poet's failing powers with the commiseration of a strong and healthy person, and she became terrified when thinking of the years in which she might survive her lord.

Taken up with caring for him, she never even glanced at herself.
A year afterward, on returning from the Philippines, the captain found a letter from his god-father awaiting him at Port Said.

Dona Pepa had died, and Labarta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle.