“What happens frequently in the world, but what has never happened here before.  A thousand times I said to my brother, ’See, Esteban, this young gentleman is not for your daughter’—­very sympathetic, very lively, and wearing the uniform of the Academy like no one else, leader of a group of the wildest cadets in all their escapades about the town, besides a son of a great family—­wealthy people who did not allow him to come to Toledo with his purse empty.  And she—­the poor Sagrario, crazy with love, flattered by her cadet, as proud as possible when she walked on Sundays through the Zocodover and the Miradero between her mother and that handsome young lover, that all the girls in the place envied her.  The beauty of your niece was the talk of all Toledo; the girls in the college for noble ladies, nicknamed her the ‘sacristana’ of the Cathedral; but the poor girl lived only for her cadet, and she seemed to devour him with her beautiful blue eyes.  That idiot, your brother, let him come to the house, proud of the honour that was being done to the family.  You know, Gabriel, the eternal blindness of those middle-class Toledans, who encourage with pride the courtship of one of their girls by a cadet, though they are perfectly well aware that it is most rare that one of these courtships should end in marriage.  There is no woman here with the slightest pretence to a pretty face who has escaped without her mouthful of love for one of those red pantaloons.  Even I remember when I was a girl how I would smooth my hair and pull out my dress when I heard the rattle of a sword on the flags of the cloister.  It is a blindness that descends from mothers to daughters, and the worst is, that those cursed ones have all their cousins and their lovers in their own country, and to them they return as soon as they leave the Academy.”

“That is true, aunt, but what happened to my niece?”

“When the young man passed out a lieutenant, his family decided he ought to return to Madrid.  The farewells were like a scene at the theatre.  I believe that even your brother and that simpleton his wife, who is now in glory, wept as though the lover were theirs.  The young people sat for hours with clasped hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, as though they would devour each other.  He was the calmest; he promised to come every Sunday and to write every day, and at first he did so, but before long many weeks passed without his coming, and the postman came up less often to the Claverias, and at last did not come at all—­it was ended, the young lieutenant found other amusements in Madrid.  Your poor niece was like one demented; the colour in her face faded, she was no longer like the beautiful ripe apricot, with the soft skin that made you long to bite it.  She wept like a Magdalen in every corner—­and one day the foolish girl fled—­and up to now—­”

“But where was she?  Did no one search for her?”