he hope of marrying their daughters well."

"Well, but how was it, aunt? What passed between my niece and the
cadet?"

"What happens frequently in the world, but what has never happened
here before. A thousand times I said to my brother, 'See, Esteban,
this young gentleman is not for your daughter'--very sympathetic,
very lively, and wearing the uniform of the Academy like no one else,
leader of a group of the wildest cadets in all their escapades about
the town, besides a son of a great family--wealthy people who did not
allow him to come to Toledo with his purse empty. And she--the poor
Sagrario, crazy with love, flattered by her cadet, as proud as
possible when she walked on Sundays through the Zocodover and the
Miradero between her mother and that handsome young lover, that all
the girls in the place envied her. The beauty of your niece was
the talk of all Toledo; the girls in the college for noble ladies,
nicknamed her the 'sacristana' of the Cathedral; but the poor girl
lived only for her cadet, and she seemed to devour him with her
beautiful blue eyes. That idiot, your brother, let him come to the
house, proud of the honour that was being done to the family. You
know, Gabriel, the eternal blindness of those middle-class Toledans,
who encourage with pride the courtship of one of their girls by a
cadet, though they are perfectly well aware that it is most rare that
one of these courtships should end in marriage. There is no woman here
with the slightest pretence to a pretty face who has escaped without
her mouthful of love for one of those red pantaloons. Even I remember
when I was a girl how I would smooth my hair and pull out my dress
when I heard the rattle of a sword on the flags of the cloister. It is
a blindness that descends from mothers to daughters, and the worst
is, that those cursed ones have all their cousins and their lovers in
their own country, and to them they return as soon as they leave the
Academy."

"That is true, aunt, but what happened to my niece?"

"When the young man passed out a lieutenant, his family decided he
ought to return to Madrid. The farewells were like a scene at the
theatre. I believe that even your brother and that simpleton his wife,
who is now in glory, wept as though the lover were theirs. The young
people sat for hours with clasped hands, gazing into each other's
eyes, as though they would devour each other. He was the calmest; he
promised to come every Sunday and to w