uld like to go, if my parents will allow me."

"Then you know this gentleman?"

"I have never seen him, and I suppose he has never seen me."

"You speak the truth, senora."

The father asked me my name and address, and promised I should have a
decisive answer by dinner-time, if I dined at home. I begged him to
excuse the liberty I had taken, and to let me know his answer without
fail, so that I might have time to get another partner if it were
unfavourable to me.

Just as I was beginning to dine my man appeared. I asked him to sit down,
and he informed me that his daughter would accept my offer, but that her
mother would accompany her and sleep in the carriage. I said that she
might do so if she liked, but I should be sorry for her on account of the
cold. "She shall have a good cloak," said he; and he proceeded to inform
me that he was a cordwainer.

"Then I hope you will take my measure for a pair of shoes."

"I daren't do that; I'm an hidalgo, and if I were to take anyone's
measure I should have to touch his foot, and that would be a degradation.
I am a cobbler, and that is not inconsistent with my nobility."

"Then, will you mend me these boots?"

"I will make them like new; but I see they want a lot of work; it will
cost you a pezzo duro, about five francs."

I told him that I thought his terms very reasonable, and he went out with
a profound bow, refusing absolutely to dine with me.

Here was a cobbler who despised bootmakers because they had to touch the
foot, and they, no doubt, despised him because he touched old leather.
Unhappy pride how many forms it assumes, and who is without his own
peculiar form of it?

The next day I sent to the gentleman-cobbler's a tradesman with dominos,
masks, and gloves; but I took care not to go myself nor to send my page,
for whom I had an aversion which almost amounted to a presentiment. I
hired a carriage to seat four, and at nightfall I drove to the house of
my pious partner, who was quite ready for me. The happy flush on her face
was a sufficient index to me of the feelings of her heart. We got into
the carriage with the mother, who was wrapped up in a vast cloak, and at
the door of the dancing-room we descended, leaving the mother in the
carriage. As soon as we were alone my fair partner told me that her name
was Donna Ignazia.

CHAPTER IV

My Amours With Donna Ignazia--My Imprisonment At Buen
Retiro--My Triumph--I Am Commended to the Venetian