n, I need scarcely
say, somewhat difficult and intricate!

Of course, in this confession, the fair Contessa never hesitated to
regard me as an injured and calumniated individual; but so assured was
she of the Bishop's desire to endow the Church with her wealth that
he would have less brooked to discover me a noble of title and rank
indisputable, than to find me a poor and ignoble adventurer. "Were he
but to recognize you," said she, "I should be condemned to a nunnery for
life!" and this terror, however little startling to _my_ ears, had too
much of significance to _her_ mind to be undervalued.

Of course my present position, the companionship of me Prince, the
foreign orders I wore, were more than sufficient to accredit me to her
as anything I pleased to represent myself; but somehow I felt little
inclination for that vein of fiction in which so often and so largely
I had indulged! For the first time in my life I regarded this flow of
invention as a treachery! and, when pressed by her to relate the full
story of my life, I limited myself to that period which, beginning with
my African campaign, brought me down to the moment of telling I was in
love. Such is the simple solution of the mystery; nor can I cite a more
convincing evidence of the ennobling nature of the passion than that it
made me, such as I was, tenacious of the truth.

Every succeeding day brought me into closer intimacy with the Senhora,
and taught me more and more to value her for other graces than those
of personal beauty. The seclusion in which she had passed her last few
years had led her to cultivate her mind by a course of study such as few
Spanish women ever think of, and which gave an almost serious character
to a nature of more than childlike buoyancy. We talked of her own joyous
land, to which she seemed longing to return, and of our first meeting
beside the "Rio Colloredo," and then of our next meeting on her own
marriage-day; and she wondered where, if ever, we should see each other
again! The opportunity was not to be lost. I pressed her hand to my
lips, and asked her never to leave me! I told her that, for me, country
had no ties,--that I had neither home nor kindred. I would at that
moment have confessed everything, even to my humble birth! I pledged
myself to live with her amidst the sierras of the Far West, or, if she
liked better, in some city of the Old World. I told her that I was rich,
and that I needed not that wealth of which her