such
occasions, to the most merciless ridicule.

The count was engaged in this agreeable exercise, when, by an evil
chance, Don Luis and Currito approached, and joined the crowd that was
listening to the odd species of panegyric, which opened to receive them.
Don Luis, as if the devil himself had had the arrangement of the matter,
found himself face to face with the count, who was speaking as follows:

"She's a cunning one, this same Pepita Ximenez, with more fancies and
whims than the Princess Micomicona. She wants to make us forget that she
was born in poverty, and lived in poverty until she married that
accursed usurer, Don Gumersindo, and took possession of his dollars. The
only good action this same widow has performed in her life was to
conspire with Satan to send the rogue quickly to hell, and free the
earth from such a contamination and plague. Pepita now has a hobby for
virtue and for chastity. All that may be very well; but how do we know
that she has not a secret intrigue with some plowboy, and is not
deceiving the world as if she were Queen Artemisia herself?"

People of quiet tastes, who seldom take part in reunions of men only,
may perhaps be scandalized by this language; it may appear to them
indecent and brutal, even to the point of incredibility; but those who
know the world will confess that language like this is very generally
employed in it, and that the most amiable and agreeable women, the most
honorable matrons, if they chance to have an enemy, or even without
having one, are often made the subjects of accusations no less infamous
and vile than those made by the count against Pepita; for scandal is
often indulged in, or, to speak more accurately, dishonor and insult are
disseminated, for the purpose of showing wit and the power to entertain.

Don Luis--who, from a child, had been accustomed to the consideration
and respect of those around him, first, of the servants and dependents
of his father, who gratified him in all his wishes, and then, of every
one in the seminary, where, as well because he was a nephew of the dean,
as on account of his own merits, he had never been contradicted in
anything, but, on the contrary, always pleased and flattered--stood,
when he heard the insolent count thus drag in the dust the name of the
woman he loved, as if a thunderbolt had fallen at his feet.

But how undertake her defense? He knew, indeed, that although he was
neither husband, brother, nor other rela