aying anything, and as he did so
Maria looked at the master's wrists, and observed the wristbands of
his shirt, neatly embroidered, and with some suspicion and beating of
her heart said to him:

"If you wish to please me, good neighbor, tell me by what seamstress
is this work?"

"It is the work," replied the master, jocularly, "the work of a pretty
maiden who for five years has toiled for my person, albeit she hath
not known it till now."

"Now I perceive," said Maria, "how that all the women who have come to
give me linen to sew and embroider were sent by you, and that is why
they paid me more than is customary."

The master did not reply, but he smiled and held out his arms to
Maria. Maria threw herself into them, embracing him very caressingly;
and Juan himself said to the two:

"In good sooth, you are made one for the other."

"By my troth, my beloved one," continued the sword-cutler after a
while, "if my countenance had only been more pleasing, I should not
have been silent towards you for so many long days, nor would I have
been content with, gazing at you from afar. I should have spoken to
you, you would have made me the confidant of your troubles, and I
would have given you the five hundred _maravedis_ for the cure of your
good father."

And whispering softly into her ear, he added: "And then you would not
have passed that evil moment under the hands of the mayoress. But if
you fear that she may break the promise she made to you to keep
silence as to your cropped head, let us, if it please you, set out for
Seville, where nobody knows you, and thus--"

"No more," exclaimed Maria, resolutely throwing on the ground the
hair, which Juan picked up all astonished. "Send this hair to the
mayoress, since it was for this and not for that of the dead woman
that she paid so dearly. For I, to cure myself of my vanity, now make
a vow, with your good permission, to go shorn all my life. Such
artificial adornments are little befitting to the wives of honest
burghers."

"But rely upon it," replied the master-cutler, "that as soon as it is
known that you have no hair, the girls of the city, envious of your
beauty, will give you the nickname of _Mariquita the Bald_!"

"They may do so," replied Maria, "and that they may see that I do not
care a fig for this or any other nickname, I swear to you that from
this day forth I will not suffer anybody to call me by another name
than _Mariquita the Bald_."

This was the ev