In the course of my visits I always found the house free from intruders, and without a vestige of pretended relations or real gallants.  She was waited on by a girl in whom there was more of the rogue than the simpleton.  At last resolving to push my suit in the style of a soldier, who is about to shift his quarters, I came to the point with my fair one, Dona Estefania de Caycedo (for that is the name of my charmer), and this was the answer she gave me:—­“Senor Alferez Campuzano, I should be a simpleton if I sought to pass myself off on you for a saint; I have been a sinner, ay, and am one still, but not in a manner to become a subject of scandal in the neighbourhood or of notoriety in public.  I have inherited no fortune either from my parents or any other relation; and yet the furniture of my house is worth a good two thousand five hundred ducats, and would fetch that sum it put up to auction at any moment.  With this property I look for a husband to whom I may devote myself in all obedience, and with whom I may lead a better life, whilst I apply myself with incredible solicitude to the task of delighting and serving him; for there is no master cook who can boast of a more refined palate, or can turn out more exquisite ragouts and made-dishes than I can, when I choose to display my housewifery in that way.  I can be the major domo in the house, the tidy wench in the kitchen, and the lady in the drawing room:  in fact, I know how to command and make myself obeyed.  I squander nothing and accumulate a great deal; my coin goes all the further for being spent under my own directions.  My household linen, of which I have a large and excellent stock, did not come out of drapers’ shops or warehouses; these fingers and those of my maid servants stitched it all, and it would have been woven at home had that been possible.  If I give myself these commendations, it is because I cannot incur your censure by uttering what it is absolutely necessary that you should know.  In fine, I wish to say that I desire a husband to protect, command, and honour me, and not a gallant to flatter and abuse me:  if you like to accept the gift that is offered you, here I am, ready and willing to put myself wholly at your disposal, without going into the public market with my hand, for it amounts to no less to place oneself at the mercy of match-makers’ tongues, and no one is so fit to arrange the whole affair as the parties themselves.”

My wits were not in my head at that moment, but in my heels.  Delighted beyond imagination, and seeing before me such a quantity of property, which I already beheld by anticipation converted into ready money, without making any other reflections than those suggested by the longing that fettered my reason, I told her that I was fortunate and blest above all men since heaven had given me by a sort of miracle such a companion, that I might make her the lady of my affections and my fortune,—­a fortune which was not so small, but that with that chain which I wore round