ender
colloquy of the lovers, and would better serve to exculpate Don Luis. We
are of the opinion, nevertheless, that, instead of censuring the author
for not having had recourse to such complications as those we have
mentioned, we ought rather to thank him for his conscientiousness in
sacrificing to the truth of his relation the marvelous effect he might
have produced, had he ventured to ornament and adorn it with incidents
and episodes drawn from his own fancy.

If the means by which this interview was brought about were, in reality,
only the officiousness and the skill of Antonona, and the weakness with
which Don Luis acceded to her request that he should grant it, why forge
lies, and cause the two lovers to be impelled, as it were, by Fate, to
see and speak with each other alone, to the great danger of the virtue
and honor of both? There was nothing of this. Whether Don Luis did well
or ill in keeping his appointment, and whether Pepita Ximenez, whom
Antonona had already told that Don Luis was coming of his own accord to
see her, did well or ill in rejoicing over that somewhat mysterious and
inopportune visit, let us not throw the blame on Fate, but on the
personages themselves who figure in this history, and on the passions
by which they are actuated. We confess to a great affection for Pepita;
but the truth is before everything, and must be declared, even should it
be to the prejudice of our heroine.

At eight o'clock, then, Antonona had told her that Don Luis was coming,
and Pepita, who had been talking of dying, whose eyes were red, whose
eyelids were slightly inflamed with weeping, and whose hair was in some
disorder, thought of nothing, thereafter, but of adorning and arranging
herself for the purpose of receiving Don Luis. She bathed her face with
warm water, so that the ravages her tears had made might be effaced to
the exact point of leaving her beauty unimpaired, while still allowing
it to be seen that she had wept. She arranged her hair, so as to
display, rather than a studied care in its arrangement, a certain
graceful and artistic carelessness, that fell short of disorder,
however, which would have been indecorous; she polished her nails, and,
as it was not fit that she should receive Don Luis in a wrapper, she put
on a simple house-dress. In fine, she managed instinctively that all the
details of her toilet should concur in heightening her beauty and grace,
but without allowing any trace to be perceiv