. The chapels on each side were festooned with garlands
of flowers; but that dedicated to the miraculous St. Anthony, junior
major in the 10th regiment of infantry, was the grandest of all, with
its magnificent silk draperies, and the altar decorated with flowers.

Jose Carcunda was a proud man that day. He had presided over all the
arrangements, and they had given great satisfaction. Belmira had set the
other girls the example of showing him their gratitude by kissing him.
He was so overwhelmed by their caresses that he tried to get clear of
them, lest his wife might be jealous; but it was of no use trying to
free himself, for they made him sit on a stone bench, and, handing him
a guitar, requested him to extemporize some verses:--

"Fair ladies mine, I love the wine,
But music I love better;
Still stronger far than song divine,
I love the ladies better.

"I love the fields with flowerets bright,
The birds with carol merry;
I love the----"

"No, I cannot sing just now; I am too happy," exclaimed the hunchback.
"I feel like the rich miser of Santillana, when he recollected that he
would be buried at the expense of the parish. So as my helpmate Joanna
come not here, I care not how long the troops delay in arriving. Ah,
Joanna is too good for me, as the runaway criminal said of the gallows;
and the older she gets the more I recognize it! Yes, Joanna is too good
for me and for this world; but we don't make ourselves--no, we don't do
that."

Here Jose Carcunda shook his head very wisely, and looked at his
slippered feet with some pardonable pride.

"Look you here," said one of his fair companions, "you are very stupid
to-day; you will not sing, nor will you dance. Will you, then, tell us
the tale about the sorrowful mule, and what befell her, or about the
merry friar who turned highwayman to enrich the Church, or about the
palaces of the enchanted Moors?"

"I will tell you something that happened to me when I was a young man,"
answered the hunchback.

"Know, then," continued Jose Carcunda, "that in my younger days I was an
almocreve (muleteer), and owned six of the finest mules in the province
of the Beira. I used to attend the weekly fair held at the university
city, Coimbra, where I found a good market for my earthenware with which
I loaded the mules.

"Fortune had favoured me, and I had saved some gold crowns; and on
Sundays, when I had shaved and put on clean linen, I was t