mbug an ill not give you a sent more if you challenje him
i promis all you want so lets see you challenje him i warn you
there must be no excuses nor delays yore cozin who loves you

VICTORINA DE LOS REYES DE DE ESPADANA

sampaloc monday 7 in the evening

The affair was serious. He was well enough acquainted with the
character of Dona Victorina to know what she was capable of. To talk
to her of reason was to talk of honesty and courtesy to a revenue
carbineer when he proposes to find contraband where there is none,
to plead with her would be useless, to deceive her worse--there was
no way out of the difficulty but to send the challenge.

"But how? Suppose he receives me with violence?" he soliloquized,
as he paced to and fro. "Suppose I find him with his senora? Who will
be willing to be my second? The curate? Capitan Tiago? Damn the hour
in which I listened to her advice! The old toady! To oblige me to
get myself tangled up, to tell lies, to make a blustering fool of
myself! What will the young lady say about me? Now I'm sorry that
I've been secretary to all the ministers!"

While the good Linares was in the midst of his soliloquy, Padre Salvi
came in. The Franciscan was even thinner and paler than usual, but his
eyes gleamed with a strange light and his lips wore a peculiar smile.

"Senor Linares, all alone?" was his greeting as he made his way to
the sala, through the half-opened door of which floated the notes
from a piano. Linares tried to smile.

"Where is Don Santiago?" continued the curate.

Capitan Tiago at that moment appeared, kissed the curate's hand, and
relieved him of his hat and cane, smiling all the while like one of
the blessed.

"Come, come!" exclaimed the curate, entering the sala, followed by
Linares and Capitan Tiago, "I have good news for you all. I've just
received letters from Manila which confirm the one Senor Ibarra
brought me yesterday. So, Don Santiago, the objection is removed."

Maria Clara, who was seated at the piano between her two friends,
partly rose, but her strength failed her, and she fell back
again. Linares turned pale and looked at Capitan Tiago, who dropped
his eyes.

"That young man seems to me to be very agreeable," continued the
curate. "At first I misjudged him--he's a little quick-tempered--but
he knows so well how to atone for his faults afterwards that one
can't hold anything against him. If it were not for Padre Damaso--"

Here the curat