are never made willingly, or except under the pressure of some painful necessity.  If what I suspect is the case, tell me so, and I swear to you on the faith of a cavalier to aid and serve you in every way I can.  That you are a woman you cannot make me doubt, for the holes in your ears make that fact very clear.  It was thoughtless of you not to close them with a little flesh-coloured wax, for somebody else as inquisitive as myself, and not so fit to be trusted with a secret, might discover by means of them what you have so ill concealed.  Believe me, you need not hesitate to tell me who you are, in full reliance on my inviolable secrecy.”

The youth had listened with great attention to all Teodoro said, and, before answering her a word, he seized her hands, carried them by force to his lips, kissed them with great fervour, and even bedewed them copiously with tears.  Teodoro could not help sympathising with the acute feelings of the youth, and shedding tears also.  Although, when she had with difficulty withdrawn her hands from the youth’s lips, he replied with a deep-drawn sigh, “I will not, and cannot deny, senora, that your suspicion is true; I am a woman, and the most unfortunate of my sex; and since the acts of kindness you have conferred upon me, and the offers you make me, oblige me to obey all your commands, listen and I will tell you who I am, if indeed it will not weary you to hear the tale of another’s misfortunes.”

“May I never know aught else myself,” replied Teodoro, “if I shall not feel a pleasure in hearing of those misfortunes equal to the pain it will give me to know that they are yours, and that will be such as if they were my own.”  And again she embraced and encouraged the seeming youth, who, somewhat more tranquilised, continued thus:—­

“I have spoken the truth with regard to my native place, but not with regard to my parents; for Don Enrique is not my father but my uncle, and his brother Don Sancho is my father.  I am that unhappy daughter of his of whom your brother says that she is celebrated for her beauty, but how mistakenly you now perceive.  My name is Leocadia; the occasion of my disguise you shall now hear.

“Two leagues from my native town there is another, one of the wealthiest and noblest of Andalusia, where lives a cavalier of quality, who derives his origin from the noble and ancient Adornos of Genoa.  He has a son, who, unless fame exaggerates his praises as it does mine, is one of the most gallant gentlemen one would desire to see.  Being so near a neighbour of ours, and being like my father strongly addicted to the chase, he often came on a visit of five or six days to our house, the greater part of that time, much of the night even included, being spent by my father and him in the field.  From these visits of his, fortune, or love, or my own imprudence, took occasion to bring me down to my present state of degradation.  Having observed, with more attention than became a