“Well, well, senora Leocadia, since the passion that sways you makes you speak so wildly, I see it is not the fit time to offer you rational advice.  I shall therefore content myself with repeating that I am ready and willing to render you every service in my power, and I know my brother’s generous nature so well, that I can boldly make you the same promise on his part.  We are going to Italy, and it rests only with yourself to accompany us.  One thing only I entreat, that you will allow me to tell my brother what I know of your story, that he may treat you with the attention and respect which is your due.  I think you had better continue to wear male attire, and if it is to be procured in this place, I will take care that you shall be suitably equipped to morrow.  For the rest, trust to time, for it is a great provider of remedies even for the most desperate cases.”

Leocadia gratefully thanked the generous Teodoro, saying he might tell his brother whatever he thought fit, and beseeching him not to forsake her, since he saw to what dangers she was exposed, if she was known to be a woman.  Here the conversation ended, and they retired to rest, Teodosia in her brother’s room, and Leocadia in another next it.  Don Rafael was still awake, waiting for his sister to know what had passed between her and the suspected woman; and before she lay down, he made her relate the whole to him in detail.  “Well, sister,” he said when she had finished, “if she is the person she declares herself to be, she belongs to the best family in her native place, and is one of the noblest ladies of Andalusia.  Her father is well known to ours, and the fame of her beauty perfectly corresponds with the evidence of our own eyes.  My opinion is, that we must proceed with caution, lest she come to speak with Marco Antonio before us, for I feel some uneasiness about that written engagement she speaks of, even though she has lost it.  But be of good cheer, sister, and go to rest, for all will come right at last.”

Teodosia complied with her brother’s advice so far as to go to bed, but it was impossible for her to rest, so racked was she by jealous fears.  Oh, how she exaggerated the beauty of Leocadia, and the disloyalty of Marco Antonio!  How often she read with the eyes of her imagination his written promise to her rival!  What words and phrases she added to it, to make it more sure and binding!  How often she refused to believe that it was lost!  And how many a time she repeated to herself, that even though it were lost, Marco Antonio would not the less fulfil his promise to Leocadia, without thinking of that by which he was bound to herself!  In such thoughts as these she passed the night without a wink of sleep; nor was her brother Don Rafael less wakeful; for no sooner had he heard who Leocadia was, than his heart was on fire for her.  He beheld her in imagination, not tied to a tree, or in tattered male garments, but in her own rich apparel in her wealthy