ender years gave any
promise of, so she said to her:

"You speak in such a way that I cannot understand you, Senora Clara;
explain yourself more clearly, and tell me what is this you are saying
about hearts and places and this musician whose voice has so moved you?
But do not tell me anything now; I do not want to lose the pleasure I get
from listening to the singer by giving my attention to your transports,
for I perceive he is beginning to sing a new strain and a new air."

"Let him, in Heaven's name," returned Clara; and not to hear him she
stopped both ears with her hands, at which Dorothea was again surprised;
but turning her attention to the song she found that it ran in this
fashion:

Sweet Hope, my stay,
That onward to the goal of thy intent
Dost make thy way,
Heedless of hindrance or impediment,
Have thou no fear
If at each step thou findest death is near.

No victory,
No joy of triumph doth the faint heart know;
Unblest is he
That a bold front to Fortune dares not show,
But soul and sense
In bondage yieldeth up to indolence.

If Love his wares
Do dearly sell, his right must be contest;
What gold compares
With that whereon his stamp he hath imprest?
And all men know
What costeth little that we rate but low.

Love resolute
Knows not the word "impossibility;"
And though my suit
Beset by endless obstacles I see,
Yet no despair
Shall hold me bound to earth while heaven is there.

Here the voice ceased and Clara's sobs began afresh, all which excited
Dorothea's curiosity to know what could be the cause of singing so sweet
and weeping so bitter, so she again asked her what it was she was going
to say before. On this Clara, afraid that Luscinda might overhear her,
winding her arms tightly round Dorothea put her mouth so close to her ear
that she could speak without fear of being heard by anyone else, and
said:

"This singer, dear senora, is the son of a gentleman of Aragon, lord of
two villages, who lives opposite my father's house at Madrid; and though
my father had curtains to the windows of his house in winter, and
lattice-work in summer, in some way--I know not how--this gentleman, who
was pursuing his studies, saw me, whether in church or elsewhere, I
cannot tell, and, in fact, fell in love with me, and gave me to know it
from the windows of his house, with so many signs and tears that I was
forced to believe him, and even to love him, without knowing what it was
he w