desired. 'There is nothing offensive in such a stipulation,' said
I; 'and I even sympathise with the feeling that inspired it.'

'It is true they have never seen you,' returned the doctor politely; 'and
if they knew you were the handsomest and the most pleasant man that ever
came from England (where I am told that handsome men are common, but
pleasant ones not so much so), they would doubtless make you welcome with
a better grace. But since you take the thing so well, it matters not. To
me, indeed, it seems discourteous. But you will find yourself the
gainer. The family will not much tempt you. A mother, a son, and a
daughter; an old woman said to be halfwitted, a country lout, and a
country girl, who stands very high with her confessor, and is,
therefore,' chuckled the physician, 'most likely plain; there is not much
in that to attract the fancy of a dashing officer.'

'And yet you say they are high-born,' I objected.

'Well, as to that, I should distinguish,' returned the doctor. 'The
mother is; not so the children. The mother was the last representative
of a princely stock, degenerate both in parts and fortune. Her father
was not only poor, he was mad: and the girl ran wild about the residencia
till his death. Then, much of the fortune having died with him, and the
family being quite extinct, the girl ran wilder than ever, until at last
she married, Heaven knows whom, a muleteer some say, others a smuggler;
while there are some who uphold there was no marriage at all, and that
Felipe and Olalla are bastards. The union, such as it was, was
tragically dissolved some years ago; but they live in such seclusion, and
the country at that time was in so much disorder, that the precise manner
of the man's end is known only to the priest--if even to him.'

'I begin to think I shall have strange experiences,' said I.

'I would not romance, if I were you,' replied the doctor; 'you will find,
I fear, a very grovelling and commonplace reality. Felipe, for instance,
I have seen. And what am I to say? He is very rustic, very cunning,
very loutish, and, I should say, an innocent; the others are probably to
match. No, no, senor commandante, you must seek congenial society among
the great sights of our mountains; and in these at least, if you are at
all a lover of the works of nature, I promise you will not be
disappointed.'

The next day Felipe came for me in a rough country cart, drawn by a mule;
and a little bef