ce, others her graceful
carriage. "This, indeed, is what you may call golden hair," cried Dona
Clara; "these are truly emerald eyes."[67] The senora, her neighbour,
examined the gitanilla piecemeal. She made a _pepetoria_[68] of all her
joints and members, and coming at last to a dimple in her chin, she
said, "Oh, what a dimple! it is a pit into which all eyes that behold it
must fall." Thereupon an esquire in attendance on Dona Clara, an elderly
gentleman with a long beard, exclaimed, "Call you this a dimple, senora?
I know little of dimples then if this be one. It is no dimple, but a
grave of living desires. I vow to God the gitanilla is such a dainty
creature, she could not be better if she was made of silver or sugar
paste. Do you know how to tell fortunes, nina?"

[67] It is hard to say what "exquisite reason" Cervantes can have had
for likening a girl's eyes to emeralds above all other gems. He uses the
phrase elsewhere, apparently without any ironical meaning.

[68] A dish, in which a fowl is served up disjointed.

"That I do, and in three or four different manners," replied Preciosa.

"You can do that too?" exclaimed Dona Clara. "By the life of my lord the
lieutenant, you must tell me mine, nina of gold, nina of silver, nina of
pearls, nina of carbuncles, nina of heaven, and more than that cannot be
said."

"Give the nina the palm of your hand, senora, and something to cross it
with," said the old gipsy; "and you will see what things she will tell
you, for she knows more than a doctor of medicine."

The senora Tenienta[69] put her hand in her pocket, but found it empty;
she asked for the loan of a quarto from her maids, but none of them had
one, neither had the senora her neighbour. Preciosa seeing this, said,
"For the matter of crosses all are good, but those made with silver or
gold are best. As for making the sign of the cross with copper money,
that, ladies, you must know lessens the luck, at least it does mine. I
always like to begin by crossing the palm with a good gold crown, or a
piece of eight, or at least a quarto, for, I am like the sacristans who
rejoice when there is a good collection."

[69] The wife of the _teniente_, or lieutenant. "
and you ask
for two-and-twenty maravedis? Go your ways, Contreras, for a tiresome
blockhead, as you always were."

"How witty you are," said the lady visitor; then turning to the squire,
"Do you happen to have a quarto about you, Senor Contreras? if you have