“When winter came, I was ordered to go to Brussel, and establish the new household in splendid style.  The ladies were to follow me.  It was four years ago.  The Duke of Alva then lived as viceroy in Brussels, and this nobleman held my mistress in high esteem, nay had even twice paid us the honor of a visit.  His aristocratic officers also frequented our house, among them Don Luis d’Avila, a nobleman of ancient family, who was one of the duke’s favorites.  Like the Marquis d’Avennes, he was no longer in his early youth, but was a man of totally different stamp; tall, strong as if hammered from steel, a soldier of invincible strength and skill, a most dreaded seeker of quarrels, but a man whose glowing eyes and wonderful gift of song must have exerted a mysterious, bewitching power over women.  Dozens of adventures, in which he was said to have taken part, were told in the servant’s hall and half of them had some foundation of truth, as I afterwards learned by experience.  If you suppose this heart-breaker bore any resemblance to the gay, curly-haired minions of fortune, on whom young ladies lavish their love, you are mistaken; Don Luis was a grave man with close-cut hair, who never wore anything but dark clothes, and even carried a sword, whose hilt, instead of gold and silver, consisted of blackened metal.  He resembled death much more than blooming love.  Perhaps this very thing made him irresistible, since we are all born for death and no suitor is so sure of victory as he.

“The padrona had not been favorably disposed to him at first, but this mood soon changed, and at New Year’s he too was admitted to small evening receptions of intimate friends.  He came whenever we invited him, but had no word, no look, scarcely a greeting for our young lady.  Only when it pleased the signorina to sing, he went near her and sharply criticised anything in her execution that chanced to displease him.  He often sang himself too, and then usually chose the same songs as Fraulein Anna, as if to surpass her by his superior skill.

“So things went on till the time of the carnival.  On Shrove-Tuesday the padrona gave a large entertainment, and when I led the servants and stood behind the signorina and Don Luis, to whom her excellenza had long been in the habit of assigning the seat beside her niece, I noticed that their hands met under the table and rested in each other’s clasp a long time.  My heart was so full of anxiety, that it was very hard for me to keep the attention so necessary on that evening—­and when the next morning, the padrona summoned me to settle the accounts, I thought it my duty to modestly remark that Don Luis d’Avila’s wooing did not seem disagreeable to the young lady in spite of her betrothal.  She let me speak, but when I ventured to repeat what people said of the Spaniard, angrily started up and showed me to the door.  A faithful servant often hears and sees more than his employers suspect, and I had the confidence of the padrona’s foster-sister, who is now dead; but at that time Susanna knew everything that concerned her mistress.