The moment the old woman heard this she cried, “Come along, girls:  tuck up your skirts, and oblige these gentlemen.”  Preciosa took the tambourine, and they all danced with so much grace and freedom, that the eyes of all the spectators were riveted upon their steps, especially those of Andrew, who gazed upon Preciosa as if his whole soul was centred in her; but an untoward accident turned his delight into anguish.  In the exertion of the dance, Preciosa let fall the paper given her by the page.  It was immediately picked up by the gentleman who had no good opinion of the gipsies.  He opened it, and said, “What have we here?  A madrigal?  Good!  Break off the dance, and listen to it; for, as far as I can judge from the beginning, it is really not bad.”  Preciosa was annoyed at this, as she did not know the contents of the paper; and she begged the gentleman not to read it, but give it back to her.  All her entreaties, however, only made Andrew more eager to hear the lines, and his friend read them out as follows:—­

      Who hath Preciosa seen
      Dancing like the Fairy Queen? 
      Ripplets on a sunlit river
      Like her small feet glance and quiver. 
      When she strikes the timbrel featly,
      When she warbles, oh how sweetly! 
      Pearls from her white hands she showers,
      From her rosy lips drop flowers. 
      Not a ringlet of her hair
      But doth thousand souls ensnare. 
      Not a glance of her bright eyes
      But seems shot from Love’s own skies. 
    He in obeisance to this sovereign maid,
    His bow and quiver at her feet hath laid.

“Por dios!” exclaimed the reader, “he is a dainty poet who wrote this.”

“He is not a poet, senor,” said Preciosa, “but a page, and a very gallant and worthy man.”

“Mind what you say, Preciosa,” returned the other; “for the praises you bestow on the page are so many lance-thrusts through Andrew’s heart.  Look at him as he sits aghast, thrown back on his chair, with a cold perspiration breaking through all his pores.  Do not imagine, maiden, that he loves you so lightly but that the least slight from you distracts him.  Go to him, for God’s sake, and whisper a few words in his ear, that may go straight to his heart, and recall him to himself.  Go on receiving such madrigals as this every day, and just see what will come of it.”

It was just as he had said.  Andrew had been racked by a thousand jealousies on hearing the verses; and was so overcome that his father observed it, and cried out, “What ails you, Don Juan?  You are turned quite pale, and look as if you were going to faint.”

“Wait a moment,” said Preciosa, “let me whisper certain words in his ear, and you will see that he will not faint.”  Then bending over him she said, almost without moving her lips, “A pretty sort of gitano you will make!  Why, Andrew, how will you be able to bear the torture with gauze,[73] when you are overcome by a bit of paper?” Then making half-a-dozen signs of the cross over his heart, she left him, after which Andrew breathed a little, and told his friends that Preciosa’s words had done him good.