grace, Don Antonio, as
you would have good news from Spain, that you suffer the fault I have
committed to remain unknown to my master, Don Juan, if he be not yet
informed of it; I will turn her out this instant."

"What is the name of this woman?" inquired Don Antonio. "Cornelia,"
replied Santisteban. Down stairs at once went the page who had
discovered the hidden woman, and who was not much of a friend to
Santisteban, and entered the room where sat the duke, Don Juan, and
Lorenzo, and, either from simplicity or malice, began to talk to
himself, saying, "Well caught, brother page! by Heaven they have made
you give up your Lady Cornelia! She was well hidden, to be sure; and no
doubt my gentleman would have liked to see the masters remain away that
he might enjoy himself some three or four days longer."

"What is that you are saying?" cried Lorenzo, who had caught a part of
these words. "Where is the Lady Cornelia?" "She is above," replied the
page; and the duke, who supposed that his consort had just made her
appearance, had scarcely heard the words before he rushed from the
apartment like a flash of lightning, and, ascending the staircase at a
bound, gained the chamber into which Don Antonio was entering.

"Where is Cornelia? where is the life of my life?" he exclaimed, as he
hurried into the room.

"Cornelia is here," replied a woman who was wrapped in a quilt taken
from the bed with which she had concealed her face. "Lord bless us!" she
continued, "one would think an ox had been stolen! Is it a new thing for
a woman to visit a page, that you make such a fuss about it?"

Lorenzo, who had now entered the room, angrily snatched off the sheet
and exposed to view a woman still young and not ill-looking, who hid her
face in her hands for shame, while her dress, which served her instead
of a pillow, sufficiently proved her to be some poor castaway.

The duke asked her, was it true her name was Cornelia? It was, she
replied--adding, that she had very decent parents in the city, but that
no one could venture to say, "Of this water I will never drink."

The duke was so confounded by all he beheld, that he was almost inclined
to think the Spaniards were making a fool of him; but, not to encourage
so grievous a suspicion, he turned away without saying a word. Lorenzo
followed him; they mounted their horses and rode off, leaving Don Juan
and Don Antonio even more astonished and dismayed than himself.

The two friends now