ravas!"
"Bravissimas!" and a hundred other such expressions of approbation.

"Do be so kind, my dear fellow, as to make a little less noise!" Euchar
said. "Oh, of course," he answered, "you unimpressionable people are
never in the least affected by music!" However he did what Euchar had
asked him to do.

When she had finished, she went and leant on a tree, as if wearied. And
as she let the chords go on sounding more and more softly till they
died away in a _pianissimo_, great tears were falling upon the
instrument.

"You are in some need, my poor, pretty child," said Euchar, in the tone
which comes only from a deeply moved heart. "Although I did not see the
beginning of your dance, you have more than made up for that by your
song, and you must not refuse to accept something from me."

He had taken out a little purse in which bright ducats were shining,
and was handing it to her as she came closer to him. She fixed her gaze
upon his hand, seized it in both her own, and falling on her knees with
a loud cry of "_Oh, Dios!_" covered it with the warmest kisses. "Ah!"
cried Ludwig, "nothing but gold is worthy to touch that beautiful
little hand." And he asked Euchar if he could give him change for a
thaler, as he had no smaller money about him.

Meanwhile the hunchback had come limping up, and he lifted the guitar,
which Emanuela had dropped on the ground, making many smiling
reverences to Euchar, supposing that he had been exceedingly generous
to the girl, from the motion with which she had thanked him.

"Scoundrel--miscreant!" growled Ludwig.

The man started in alarm, and said, in a lamentable tone, "Ah, sir, why
are you so angry? Don't condemn poor Biagio Cubas--a good, respectable,
honest man. Don't judge me by the colour of my skin, or by the ugliness
of my face. I know I _have_ an ugly face. I was born in Lorca, and am
every bit as good a Christian as you are yourself."

The girl jumped up hastily, crying out to the old man in Spanish, "Come
away, little father, as quickly as you can." And they both hurried off,
Cubas continuing to make various odd reverences, and Emanuela fixing
upon Euchar the most soul-full gaze of which her beautiful eyes were
capable.

When the strange couple were lost among the trees, Euchar said, "You
must see, do you not, that you were in much too great a hurry to
condemn that little cobold in your own mind? He _has_ a touch or so of
the gypsy about him. As he says himself, he comes