All this, I conjectured, must have happened at least twenty years
before I was born. I also concluded that the ballad had never been
printed, otherwise I would most probably have found it; but some
copies in writing had evidently been made and it had become a
favourite composition with the reciters at festive gatherings, but had
now gone out and was hopelessly lost.
These, as I have already intimated, were but the little things that
touched a child's fancy; there was another romantic circumstance in
the life of Rosas which appealed to everybody, adult as well as child.
He was the father of Dona Manuela, known by the affectionate
diminutive, Manuelita, throughout the land, and loved and admired by
all, even by her father's enemies, for her compassionate disposition.
Perhaps she was the one being in the world for whom he, a widower and
lonely man, cherished a great tenderness. It is certain that her power
over him was very great and that many lives that would have been taken
for State reasons were saved by her interposition. It was a beautiful
and fearful part that she, a girl, was called on to play on that
dreadful stage; and very naturally it was said that she, who was the
very spirit of mercy incarnate, could not have acted as the loving,
devoted daughter to one who was the monster of cruelty his enemies
proclaimed him to be.
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