Don Andres paused to sift his recollections, and after a long silence added: 

“The truth is, I can’t tell you any more.  At that time, we were in power again, and I had very little to do with the Doctor.  We gradually lost sight of him, forgot him, practically.  The music we heard when going by the house was all there was to remind us of him.  We learned one day, through his sister, dona Pepa, that he had gone way off with the little girl somewhere—­what was that city you visited, Rafael?—­Milan, yes, Milan, that’s it!  I’ve been told that’s the market for singers.  He wanted his Leonora to become a prima donna.  He never came back, poor fellow!...  Things must have gone badly with them.  Every year he would write home to his sister to sell another piece of land.  It is known that over there they lived in real poverty.  In a few years the little fortune the Doctor got from his parents was gone.  Poor dona Pepa, kind old soul, even disposed of the house—­which belonged half to the Doctor and half to her—­sent him every cent of the money, and moved to the orchard.  Ever since then she’s been coming in to mass and to Forty Hours in all sorts of weather.  I could learn nothing for certain after that.  People lie so, you see.  Some say poor Moreno shot himself because his daughter left him when she got placed on the stage; others say that he died like a dog in a poorhouse.  The only sure thing is that he died and that his daughter went on having a great time all over those countries over there.  The way she went it!  They even say she had a king or two.  As for money!  Say, boys, there are ways and ways of earning it, and ways and ways of spending it!  The fellow who knows all about that side of her is the barber Cupido.  He imagines he’s an artist, because he plays the guitar; and besides he has a Republican grouch, and was a great admirer of her father’s.  He’s the only one in town who followed all she was up to, in the papers.  They say she doesn’t sing under her own name, but uses some prettier sounding one—­foreign, I believe.  Cupido is a regular busybody and you can get all the latest news in his barbershop.  Only yesterday he went to dona Pepa’s farmhouse to greet the ‘eminent artist,’ as he calls her.  There’s no end to what he tells.  Trunks in every corner, enough to pack a house-full of things into, and silk dresses ... shopfuls of them!  Hats, I can’t say how many; jewelry-boxes on every table with diamonds that strike you blind.  And she told Cupido to have the station-agent get a move on and send what was still missing—­the heavier luggage—­boxes and boxes that come from way off somewhere—­the other end of the world, and that cost a fortune just to ship....  There you are!...  And why not?  The way she earned it!”

Don Andres winking maliciously and laughing like an old faun, gave a sly nudge at Rafael, who was listening in deep abstraction to the story.

“But is she going to live on here?” asked the young man.  “Accustomed as she is to flitting about the world, do you think she’ll be able to stand this place?”