do they want your excellency to do?"

"To allow long cloaks and low-crowned hats; you must know all about it."

"I only arrived at Madrid yesterday evening."

"Very good. Don't come here on Sunday, as my house is to be blown up."

"I should like to see that, my lord, so I will be in your hall at noon."

"I expect you will be in good company."

I duly went, and never had I seen it so full. The count was addressing
the company, under the last poster threatening him with death, two very
energetic lines were inscribed by the person who put up the poster,
knowing that he was at the same time running his head into the noose:

Si me cogen, me horqueran,
Pero no me cogeran.

"If they catch me, they will hang me,
So I shall not let them catch me."

At dinner Donna Ignazia told me how glad she was to have me in the house,
but she did not respond to all my amorous speeches after Philippe had
left the room. She blushed and sighed, and then being obliged to say
something, begged me to forget everything that had passed between us. I
smiled, and said that I was sure she knew she was asking an
impossibility. I added that even if I could forget the past I would not
do so.

I knew that she was neither false nor hypocritical, and felt sure that
her behaviour proceeded from devotion; but I knew this could not last
long. I should have to conquer her by slow degrees. I had had to do so
with other devotees who had loved me less than she, nevertheless, they
had capitulated. I was therefore sure of Donna Ignazia.

After dinner she remained a quarter of an hour with me, but I refrained
from any amorous attempts.

After my siesta I dressed, and went out without seeing her. In the
evening when she came in for her father, who had supped with me, I
treated her with the greatest politeness without shewing any ill-humour.
The following day I behaved in the same manner. At dinner she told me she
had broken with her lover at the beginning of Lent, and begged me not to
see him if he called on me.

On Whit Sunday I called on the Count of Aranda, and Don Diego, who was
exquisitely dressed, dined with me. I saw nothing of his daughter. I
asked after her, and Don Diego replied, with a smile, that she had shut
herself up in her room to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. He pronounced
these words in a manner and with a smile that he would not have dared to
use if he had been speaking to a fellow-Spaniard. He added that she
would,