discussions on
matters foreign to the game itself, in all which Pepita displays such
clearness of understanding, such liveliness of imagination, and a grace
of expression so extraordinary, as to astonish me.

I find no sufficient motive to change my opinion with respect to what I
have already said in answer to your suspicions that Pepita perhaps feels
a certain liking for me. She manifests toward me the affection she would
naturally entertain for the son of her suitor, Don Pedro de Vargas, and
the timidity and shyness that would be inspired by a man in my position,
who, though not yet a priest, is soon to become one.

Nevertheless, as I always speak to you in my letters as if I were
kneeling before you in the confessional, I desire, as is my duty, to
communicate to you a passing impression I have received on two or three
occasions. This impression may be but a hallucination or a delusion, but
I have none the less received it.

I have already told you in my former letters that the eyes of Pepita,
green as those of Circe, are calm and tranquil in their gaze; she does
not seem to be conscious of their power, or to know that they serve for
any other purpose than to see with. When she looks at one, the soft
light of her glance is so clear, so frank, and so untroubled that,
instead of giving rise to any evil thoughts, it seems to give birth to
pure thoughts, and leaves innocent and chaste souls in untroubled
repose, while it destroys every incitement to evil in souls that are not
chaste. There is no trace of ardent passion, no fire to be discovered in
Pepita's eyes. Their light is like the mild ray of the moon.

Well, then, notwithstanding all this, I fancied I detected, on two or
three occasions, a sudden brightness, a gleam as of lightning, a swift,
devouring flame in her eyes as they rested on me. Can this be the result
of a ridiculous vanity, inspired by the arch-fiend himself?

I think so. I believe it is, and I wish to believe it.

The swiftness, the fugitive nature of the impression make me conjecture
that it had no external reality, that it was only an illusion.

The serenity of heaven, the coldness of indifference, tempered, indeed,
with sweetness and charity--this is what I always discern in Pepita's
eyes.

Nevertheless, this illusion, this vision of a strange and ardent glance,
torments me.

My father affirms that in affairs of the heart it is the woman, not the
man, who takes the first step; and that sh