e stage of my fancy in foe, leafy
seclusion of the grove not as she rode before us on horseback but in an
ideal and ethereal fashion, as to AEneas his mother, as Minerva to
Callimachus, as the sylph who, afterward became the mother of Libusa to
the Bohemian Kroco, as Diana to the son of Aristaeus, as the angels in
the valley of Mamre to the patriarch, as the hippocentaur to St. Anthony
in the solitude of the wilderness.

That the vision of Pepita should assume in my mind something of a
supernatural character, seems to me no more to be wondered at than any
of these. For an instant, seeing the consistency of the illusion, I
thought myself tempted by evil spirits; but I reflected that in the few
moments, during which I had been alone with Pepita near the brook of the
Solana, nothing had occurred that was not natural and commonplace; that
it was afterward, as I rode along quietly on my mule, that some demon,
hovering invisible around me, had suggested these extravagant fancies.

That night I told my father of my desire to learn to ride. I did not
wish to conceal from him that it was Pepita who had suggested this
desire. My father was greatly rejoiced; he embraced me, he kissed me, he
said that now not you only would be my teacher, but that he also would
have the pleasure of teaching me something. He ended by assuring me that
in two or three weeks he would make of me the best horseman of all
Andalusia; able to go to Gibraltar for contraband goods and come back
laden with tobacco and cotton, after eluding the vigilance of the
custom-house officers; fit, in a word, to astonish the riders who show
off their horsemanship in the fairs of Seville and Mairena, and worthy
to press the flanks of Babreca, Bucephalus, or even of the horses of the
sun themselves, if they should by chance descend to earth, and I could
catch them by the bridle.

I don't know what you will think of this notion of my learning to ride,
but I take it for granted you will see nothing wrong in it.

If you could but see how happy my father is, and how he delights in
teaching me! Since the day after the excursion I told you of, I take two
lessons daily. There are days on which the lesson is continuous, for we
spend from morning till night on horseback. During the first week the
lessons took place in the court-yard of the house, which is unpaved, and
which served us as a riding-school.

We now ride out into the country, but manage so that no one shall see
us.