the viceroy had early shown partiality for him,
in the best schools in the New World. His education had been ripened and
polished by a sojourn of several years in Europe, not only at the court
of Madrid but also at that of Versailles, where the Count de Lara had
been sent as ambassador to the Grand Monarch during a period in which,
for the sake of supervising the education of his only daughter, he had
temporarily absented himself from his beloved Venezuela. That an unknown
man should have been given such opportunities, should have been treated
with so much consideration, was sufficient commentary on the
unprecedented kindness of heart of the old Hidalgo who represented the
failing power of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, Carlos II., the
Bewitched, in the new world. Whatever his origin, therefore, he had been
brought up as a Spanish soldier and gentleman, and the old count was
openly proud of him.

With assured station, ample means, increasing reputation; with youth,
health, and personal good looks, the young Governor should have been a
happy man. But it was easy to see from the heavy frown upon his sunny
face--for he was that rare thing in Spain, a blue-eyed blond who at
first sight might have been mistaken for an Englishman--that his soul
was filled with melancholy. And well it might be, for Alvarado was the
victim of a hopeless passion for Mercedes de Lara, the Viceroy's
daughter, known from one end of the Caribbean to the other, from her
beauty and her father's station, as the Pearl of Caracas.

Nor was his present sadness due to unrequited passion, for he was
confident that the adoration of his heart was met with an adequate
response from its object. Indeed, it was no secret to him that Mercedes
loved him with a devotion which matched his own. It was not that; but
her father had announced his intention to betroth the girl to Don Felipe
de Tobar y Bobadilla, a young gentleman of ancient lineage and vast
wealth, who had been born in America and was the reputed head in the
Western Hemisphere of the famous family whose name he bore.

The consent of Donna Mercedes to the betrothal had not been asked. That
was a detail which was not considered necessary by parents in the year
of grace 1685, and especially by Spanish parents. That she should object
to the engagement, or refuse to carry out her father's plan never
crossed the Viceroy's imagination. That she might love another, was an
idea to which he never gave a tho