was nevertheless beautiful in the extreme.  She was in bad health, looked pale, and was so weary, that she ordered her bed to be instantly made, and her servants made it in this very room.  They asked me who was the most famous physician in this city.  I said Doctor de la Fuente.  They went for him instantly; he came without delay, saw his patient alone, and the result was that he ordered the bed to be made in some other part of the house, where the lady might not be disturbed by any noise, which was immediately done.  None of the men-servants entered the lady’s apartment, but only the two duenas and the damsel.  My wife and I asked the men-servants who was this lady, what was her name, whence she came, and whither she was going?  Was she wife, widow, or maid, and why she wore that pilgrim’s dress?  To all these questions, which we repeated many and many a time, we got no other answer than that this pilgrim was a noble and wealthy lady of old Castile, that she was a widow, and had no children to inherit her wealth; and that having been for some months ill of the dropsy, she had made a vow to go on a pilgrimage to our Lady of Guadalupe, and that was the reason for the dress she wore.  As for her name, they were under orders to call her nothing but the lady pilgrim.

“So much we learned then; but three days after one of the duenas called myself and my wife into the lady’s presence, and there, with the door locked, and before her women, she addressed us with tears in her eyes, I believe in these very words:—­

“’Heaven is my witness, friends, that without any fault of mine, I find myself in the cruel predicament which I shall now declare to you.  I am pregnant, and so near my time, that I already feel the pangs of travail.  None of my men-servants are aware of my misfortune, but from my women here I have neither been able nor desirous to conceal it.  To escape prying eyes in my own neighbourhood, and that this hour might not come upon me there, I made a vow to go to our Lady of Guadalupe; but it is plainly her will that my labour should befal me in your house.  It is now for you to succour and aid me with the secrecy due to one who commits her honour to your hands.  In this purse there are two hundred gold crowns, which I present to you as a first proof how grateful I shall be for the good offices I am sure you will render me;’ and taking from under her pillow a green silk purse, embroidered with gold, she put it into the hands of my wife, who, like a simpleton, stood gaping at the lady, and did not say so much as a word in the way of thanks or acknowledgment.  For my part I remember that I said there was no need at all of that, we were not persons to be moved more by interest than by humanity to do a good deed when the occasion offered.  The lady then continued, ’You must immediately, my friends, look out for some place to which you may convey my child as soon as it is born, and also you must contrive some story to tell to the person in whose charge you will leave it.