God in his proper place
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que elle punha Deus no devido logar, e sorriu approvando.
that he placed God in the proper place, and smiled approvingly.
She approves his putting God first, and smiles.
The image is precise and faintly comic: God assigned to a 'devido logar,' as if reverence were a matter of correct seating. José Dias has arranged the furniture of piety, and Dona Glória, watching him do it, gives the arrangement her nod. The verb 'punha' makes devotion an act of placement, something staged rather than felt.
Her smile is the point of the whole small scene. 'Sorriu approvando' seals the transaction: he performs, she approves, and his standing in the household is renewed one more time. Machado lets the mother's approval close the paragraph so that we feel how frictionless the flattery is. Nothing here is confronted or examined; the pious gesture passes for the pious heart. It is exactly this atmosphere of unexamined good feeling that will later let José Dias's suggestions travel so far, so easily, through the house.
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