Page:Brazilian short stories.djvu/57

 her head. She wanted to reciprocate. She searched the rhetorical nosegays of her mind so as to cull the most beautiful flower and found only a humble jasmine.

"What a beautiful thought for a postal-card!" she said.

They did not go beyond the jasmine; coffee and fried cakes interrupted the budding idyl.

What a night! One would say the angel of happiness had spread his golden wings over that lonely house. Zilda saw all the love tales she had ever devoured come true. Dona Izaura enjoyed the hope of marrying her off wealthy. Moreira dreamed of settling debts with a big surplus tinkling in his pockets. And Zico, transformed in his imagination into a grocer, the whole night in dreams sold on credit to Tudinha's people, who, finally charmed by so much kindness, gave him the daughter's much desired hand.

Only Trancoso slept the sleep of the just; dreamless and undisturbed by nightmares. How good it is to be rich!

The next day he went over the remainder of the fazenda, coffee-plantations and pastures; examined the live-stock and out-buildings; and as the amiable young man continued to be charmed, Moreira, who the night before had decided to ask forty contos for Espigão, thought it wise to raise the price. After the scene of the Pau d'Alho, in his mind he raised it to forty-five; after the examination of the live-stock it had already risen to sixty. And thus when the great question was broached, the old man declared courageously in the firm voice of an alea jacta: