The company were much amused by the gitana’s chat, and all gave her money.  The old woman sacked thirty reals, and went off with her flock as merry as a cricket to the house of the senor lieutenant, after promising that she would return with them another day to please such liberal gentlemen.  Dona Clara, the lieutenant’s lady, had been apprised of the intended visit of the gipsies, and she and her doncellas and duenas, as well as those of another senora, her neighbour, were expecting them as eagerly as one looks for a shower in May.  They had come to see Preciosa.  She entered with her companions, shining among them like a torch among lesser lights, and all the ladies pressed towards her.  Some kissed her, some gazed at her; others blessed her sweet face, others her graceful carriage.  “This, indeed, is what you may call golden hair,” cried Dona Clara; “these are truly emerald eyes."[67] The senora, her neighbour, examined the gitanilla piecemeal.  She made a pepetoria[68] of all her joints and members, and coming at last to a dimple in her chin, she said, “Oh, what a dimple! it is a pit into which all eyes that behold it must fall.”  Thereupon an esquire in attendance on Dona Clara, an elderly gentleman with a long beard, exclaimed, “Call you this a dimple, senora?  I know little of dimples then if this be one.  It is no dimple, but a grave of living desires.  I vow to God the gitanilla is such a dainty creature, she could not be better if she was made of silver or sugar paste.  Do you know how to tell fortunes, nina?”

[67] It is hard to say what “exquisite reason” Cervantes can have had for likening a girl’s eyes to emeralds above all other gems.  He uses the phrase elsewhere, apparently without any ironical meaning.

[68] A dish, in which a fowl is served up disjointed.

“That I do, and in three or four different manners,” replied Preciosa.

“You can do that too?” exclaimed Dona Clara.  “By the life of my lord the lieutenant, you must tell me mine, nina of gold, nina of silver, nina of pearls, nina of carbuncles, nina of heaven, and more than that cannot be said.”

“Give the nina the palm of your hand, senora, and something to cross it with,” said the old gipsy; “and you will see what things she will tell you, for she knows more than a doctor of medicine.”

The senora Tenienta[69] put her hand in her pocket, but found it empty; she asked for the loan of a quarto from her maids, but none of them had one, neither had the senora her neighbour.  Preciosa seeing this, said, “For the matter of crosses all are good, but those made with silver or gold are best.  As for making the sign of the cross with copper money, that, ladies, you must know lessens the luck, at least it does mine.  I always like to begin by crossing the palm with a good gold crown, or a piece of eight, or at least a quarto, for, I am like the sacristans who rejoice when there is a good collection.”