Part 24 (1/2)

I tried several times to paint Felipa during these first weeks, but those eyes of hers always evaded me. They were, as I have said before, yellow--that is, they were brown with yellow lights--and they stared at you with the most inflexible openness. The child had the full-curved, half-open mouth of the tropics, and a low Greek forehead. ”Why isn't she pretty?” I said.

”She is hideous,” replied Christine; ”look at her elbows.”

Now Felipa's arms _were_ unpleasant: they were brown and lean, scratched and stained, and they terminated in a pair of determined little paws that could hold on like grim Death. I shall never forget coming upon a tableau one day out on the barren--a little Florida cow and Felipa, she holding on by the horns, and the beast with its small fore feet stubbornly set in the sand; girl pulling one way, cow the other; both silent and determined. It was a hard contest, but the girl won.

”And if you pa.s.s over her elbows, there are her feet,” continued Christine languidly. For she was a sybaritic lover of the fine linens of life, that friend of mine--a pre-Raphaelite lady with clinging draperies and a mediaeval clasp on her belt. Her whole being rebelled against ugliness, and the mere sight of a sharp-nosed, light-eyed woman on a cold day made her uncomfortable.

”Have we not feet too?” I replied sharply.

But I knew what she meant. Bare feet are not pleasant to the eye nowadays, whatever they may have been in the days of the ancient Greeks; and Felipa's little brown insteps were half the time torn or bruised by the thorns of the chaparral. Besides, there was always the disagreeable idea that she might step upon something cold and squirming when she prowled through the thickets knee-deep in the matted gra.s.ses. Snakes abounded, although we never saw them; but Felipa went up to their very doors, as it were, and rang the bell defiantly.

One day old Grandfather Bartolo took the child with him down to the coast: she was always wild to go to the beach, where she could gather sh.e.l.ls and sea-beans, and chase the little ocean-birds that ran along close to the waves with that swift gliding motion of theirs, and where she could listen to the roar of the breakers. We were several miles up the salt-marsh, and to go down to the ocean was quite a voyage to Felipa. She bade us good-by joyously; then ran back to hug Christine a second time, then to the boat again; then back.

”I thought you wanted to go, child?” I said, a little impatiently; for I was reading aloud, and these small irruptions were disturbing.

”Yes,” said Felipa, ”I want to go; and still--Perhaps if the gracious senora would kiss me again--”

Christine only patted her cheek and told her to run away: she obeyed, but there was a wistful look in her eyes, and, even after the boat had started, her face, watching us from the stem, haunted me.

”Now that the little monkey has gone, I may be able at last to catch and fix a likeness of her,” I said; ”in this case a recollection is better than the changing quicksilver reality.”

”You take it as a study of ugliness?”

”Do not be hard upon the child, Christine.”

”Hard? Why, she adores me,” said my friend, going off to her hammock under the tree.

Several days pa.s.sed, and the boat returned not. I accomplished a fine amount of work, and Christine a fine amount of swinging in the hammock and dreaming. At length one afternoon I gave my final touch, and carried my sketch over to the pre-Raphaelite lady for criticism. ”What do you see?” I said.

”I see a wild-looking child with yellow eyes, a mat of curly black hair, a lank little bodice, her two thin brown arms embracing a gaunt old dog with crooked legs, big feet, and turned-in toes.”

”Is that all?”

”All.”

”You do not see latent beauty, courage, and a possible great gulf of love in that poor wild little face?”

”Nothing of the kind,” replied Christine decidedly. ”I see an ugly little girl; that is all.”

The next day the boat returned, and brought back five persons, the old grandfather, Felipa, Drollo, Miguel of the island, and--Edward Bowne.

”Already?” I said.

”Tired of the Madre, Kitty; thought I would come up here and see you for a while. I knew you must be pining for me.”

”Certainly,” I replied; ”do you not see how I have wasted away?”

He drew my arm through his and raced me down the plank-walk toward the sh.o.r.e, where I arrived laughing and out of breath.

”Where is Christine?” he asked.