oney, his advisers counselled him to go into the provinces and offer
himself as a physician. At first he refused, but, necessity becoming
pressing, his friends convinced him of the vanity of his scruples. He
started out, kept by his conscience from asking more than small fees,
and was on the road to prosperity when a jealous doctor called him to
the attention of the College of Physicians at Manila. Nothing would
have come of it, but the affair reached the ears of the people; loss
of confidence followed, and then loss of patrons. Misery again stared
him in the face when he heard of the affliction of Dona Victorina. Don
Tiburcio saw here a patch of blue sky, and asked to be presented.

They met, and after a half-hour of conversation, reached an
understanding. Without doubt she would have preferred a Spaniard less
halting, less bald, without impediment of speech, and with more teeth;
but such a Spaniard had never asked her hand, and at thirty-two what
woman is not prudent?

For his part, Don Tiburcio resigned himself when he saw the spectre
of famine raise its head. Not that he had ever had great ambitions
or great pretensions; but his heart, virgin till now, had pictured a
different divinity. He was, however, somewhat of a philosopher. He
said to himself: "All that was a dream! Is the reality powdered
and wrinkled, homely and ridiculous? Well, I am bald and lame and
toothless."

They were married then, and Dona Victorina was enchanted with her
husband. She had him fitted out with false teeth, attired by the
best tailors of the city, and ordered carriages and horses for the
professional visits she intended him again to make.

While thus transforming her husband, she did not forget herself. She
discarded the silk skirt and jacket of pina for European costume,
loaded her head with false hair, and her person with such extravagances
generally as to disturb the peace of a whole idle and tranquil
neighborhood.

The glamour around the husband first began to dim when he tried to
approach the subject of the rice powder by remarking that nothing is so
ugly as the false or so admirable as the natural. Dona Victorina looked
unpleasantly at his teeth, and he was silent. Indeed, at the end of a
very short time the doctora had arrived at the complete subjugation of
her husband, who no longer offered any more resistance than a little
lap-dog. If he did anything to annoy her, she forbade his going out,
and in her moments of greatest