his wife's wishes
by all sorts of presents, and encouraging her to ask for whatever came
into her head, for in everything it should be his pleasure to gratify
her.

On the days she went to mass, which as we have said was before daylight,
her parents attended at church and talked with their daughter in
presence of her husband, who made them such liberal gifts as mitigated
the keenness of their compassion for the secluded life led by their
daughter. Carrizales used to get up in the morning and watch for the
arrival of the purveyor, who was always made aware of what was wanted
for the day by means of a note placed over-night in the turning box.
After the purveyor had come and gone, Carrizales used to go abroad,
generally on foot, locking both entrance doors behind him--that next the
street, and that which opened on the quadrangle,--and leaving the negro
shut up between them. Having despatched his business, which was not
much, he speedily returned, shut himself up in his house, and occupied
himself in making much of his wife and her handmaids, who all liked him
for his placid and agreeable humour, and above all for his great
liberality towards them. In this way they passed a year of novitiate,
and made profession of that manner of life, resolved every one of them
to continue in it to the end of their days; and so it would have been,
if the crafty perturber of the human race had not brought their chaste
purposes to nought, as you shall presently hear.

Now, I ask the most long-headed and wary of my readers, what more could
old Felipe have done in the way of taking precautions for his security,
since he would not even allow that there should be any male animal
within his dwelling? No tom-cat ever persecuted its rats, nor was the
barking of a dog ever heard within its walls; all creatures belonging to
it were of the feminine gender. He took thought by day, and by night he
did not sleep; he was himself the patrol and sentinel of his house, and
the Argus of what he held dear. Never did a man set foot within the
quadrangle; he transacted his business with his friends in the street;
the pictures that adorned his rooms were all female figures, flowers, or
landscapes; his whole dwelling breathed an odour of propriety,
seclusion, and circumspection; the very tales which the maid servants
told by the fireside in the long winter nights, being told in his
presence, were perfectly free from the least tinge of wantonness. Her
aged spou