ter, she bade them all go to bed, and next night they should be able
to enjoy themselves without any such false alarm as had spoiled their
sport for that time. The women all knew well that the old duena only
wanted to be left alone; but they could not help obeying her, for she
had command over them all.

Having got rid of the servants, the duena went back to the saloon, and
began to exercise her powers of persuasion upon Leonora. She made her a
long and plausible harangue, so well put together that one might have
supposed she had composed it beforehand. She extolled the good looks of
the gentle musico, the elegance of his manners, his wondrous suavity,
and his countless other good qualities; represented how infinitely more
agreeable must be the caresses of such a charming young gallant than
those of the old husband; assured her the affair would never be
discovered, and plied her with a thousand other arguments which the
devil put into her mouth, all so specious and so artfully coloured, that
they might have beguiled the firmest mind, much more that of a being so
artless and unwary as poor Leonora. O duenas, born and used for the
perdition of thousands of modest, virtuous beings! O ye long plaited
coifs, chosen to impart an air of grave decorum to the _salas_ of noble
ladies, how do you reverse the functions of your perhaps needful office!
In fine, the duena talked with such effect, that Leonora consented to
her own undoing, and to that of all the precautions of the wary
Carrizales, whose sleep was the death of his honour. Marialonso took her
mistress by the hand, led the weeping lady almost by force to Loaysa,
and wishing them much joy with a diabolical leer, she left them both
shut in together, and laid herself down in the saloon to sleep, or
rather to await the reward she had earned. Overcome, however, by the
loss of rest on two successive nights, she could not keep her eyes open,
but fell fast asleep on the carpet.

And now, if we did not know that Carrizales was asleep, it would not be
amiss to ask him, where now were all his jealous cares and precautions?
What now availed the lofty walls of his house, and the exclusion from it
of every male creature? What had he gained by his turning-box, his thick
walls, his stopped up windows, the enormously strict seclusion to which
he had doomed his family, the large jointure he had settled on Leonora,
the presents he was continually making her, his liberal treatment of her
at