by a certain instinct of divination
that is in all women, and especially in young girls, no matter how
innocent they may be, that this was said in earnest, grew as red as a
cherry and said nothing. Her mother answered in her stead:

"Child, don't be ill-bred; answer your uncle as you should: 'With much
pleasure, uncle; whenever you wish.'"

This "with much pleasure, uncle--whenever you wish," came then, it is
said, and many times afterward, almost mechanically from the trembling
lips of Pepita, in obedience to the admonitions, the sermons, the
complaints, and even the imperious mandate of her mother.

I see, however, that I am enlarging too much on this matter of Pepita
Ximenez and her history; but she interests me, as I suppose she should
interest you too, since, if what they affirm here be true, she is to be
your sister-in-law and my step-mother. I shall endeavor,
notwithstanding, to avoid dwelling on details, and to relate briefly
what perhaps you already know, though you have been away from here so
long.

Pepita Ximenez was married to Don Gumersindo. The tongue of slander was
let loose against her, both in the days preceding the wedding and for
some months afterward.

In point of fact, ethically considered, this marriage was a matter that
will admit of discussion; but, so far as the girl herself is concerned,
if we remember her mother's prayers, her complaints, and even her
commands--if we take into consideration the fact that Pepita thought by
this means to procure for her mother a comfortable old age, and to save
her brother from dishonor and infamy, constituting herself his guardian
angel and his earthly providence, we must confess that our condemnation
will admit of some abatement. Besides, who shall penetrate into the
recesses of the heart, into the hidden secrets of the immature mind of a
young girl brought up, probably, in the most absolute seclusion and
ignorance of the world, in order to know what idea she might have formed
to herself of marriage? Perhaps she thought that to marry this old man
meant to devote her life to his service, to be his nurse, to soothe his
old age; to save him from a solitude and abandonment embittered by his
infirmities, and in which only mercenary hands should minister to him;
in a word, to cheer and illumine his declining years with the glowing
beams of her beauty and her youth, like an angel who has taken human
form. If something of this, or all of this, was what the girl