But then, they sometimes saw another look in her face, though not often, and perhaps it was less natural to her though not less true to her nature.  They had seen the brown eyes soften wonderfully and the small hands do very tender things, now and then, for poor children and suffering women when, no one else was at hand to give aid.  Yet, at most times, she was quiet, cheerful, natural, for it happened more and more rarely that any one opposed her will.

She became to them the very incarnation of power on earth.  She would have been thought rich in any country; to their utter wretchedness her wealth was fabulous beyond bounds of fairy tale.  Most persons would have admitted that she was wonderfully practical and showed a great deal of common sense in what she did; to her own people she seemed preternaturally wise, only to be compared with Providence for her foresight, and much more occupied with their especial welfare than Providence could be expected to be, considering the extent of the world.  She was endlessly charitable to women and children and old men, but to those who could work she was inexorable.  She paid well, but she insisted that the work should be done honestly.  Some of the younger ones murmured at her hardness when they had tried to deceive her.

“Would you take false money from me?” she asked.  “Why should I take false work from you?  You have good work to sell, and I have good money to give you for it.  I do not cheat you.  Do not try to cheat me.”

They laughed shamefacedly and worked better the next time, for they were not without common sense, either.  Doubtless, she attempted and expected more than was possible at first, but she had Don Teodoro at her elbow, and he was able to direct her energy, though he could not have moderated it.  He found it hard, indeed, to keep pace with her swift advances towards the civilization of Muro, and he was quite incapable of entering into the boldness of some of her generalizations, which, to tell the truth, were youthful enough when she first expressed her ideas to him.  But while one of his two great passions was learning, the other was charity, in that simple form which gives all it has to any one who seems to be in trouble—­the charity that is universal, and easily imposed upon, and that exists spontaneously and, as it were, for its own sake, in certain warm-hearted people—­an indiscriminate love of giving to the poor, the overflow of a heart so full of kindness that it would be kind to a withering flower or a half-dead tree, rather than not expend itself at all.  And so, seeing the great things that were done by Veronica in Muro, and secretly giving of his very little where she gave very much, Don Teodoro grew daily to be more and more happy in the satisfaction of his strongest instinct; and little by little he, also, came to look upon his princess as the incarnation of a good power come to illuminate his darkness and to lift his people out of degradation to human estate.