es a
couple of rebellious tears, "ask me not, for shame and sorrow will choke
my utterance."

"May all the curses of Heaven choke you! Woman, what have you done with
my daughter? Speak--speak, or by _Santiago de Compostela_, I will so
belabour thy shrivelled form, as to reduce it to atoms in less time
than you can say your _credo_."

The duenna had never before seen her master in so terrible a passion,
and she almost repented not having followed her first impulse to fly.
She inwardly cursed that tenderness for her reputation, which had
brought the more substantial part of her person into the present
quandary. A vigorous defence was the only alternative now left her.

"What have I done with your daughter!" she exclaimed, with a look which
she meant to be expressive of indignant surprise.--"May the Lord help
you!--what should I have done with your daughter?"

"Where is she then?"

A pause ensued.

"Where is she?" demanded again the agitated father, with redoubled
emotion.

"Alas! I know not--she is gone to all appearance--May the light of
Heaven, and her guardian angel conduct her steps!"

"Gone!--my Theodora gone!" cried Don Manuel in the height of
affliction.

"I conclude that to be the case," added the duenna, with assurance, "for
she is nowhere to be found."

The desolate father appeared thunderstruck at this intelligence. He
smote his venerable forehead, and plucked his grey beard in the anguish
of despair. Then he vented the most bitter reproaches against the
ingratitude of his daughter, and cursed the day that gave her birth.

Whilst he was thus vainly indulging in the paroxysm of grief, the duenna
kept crossing herself with such active fervour, that the repeated and
rapid motion of her hand at last caught the attention of the sorrowing
and abstracted father.

"Oh, thou vile hypocrite!" he exclaimed, darting a furious look--"Thou
beldame!--Is this the way thou hast answered the confidence reposed in
thee?--I have nurtured a serpent in my house--I have set the ravenous
wolf to guard the lamb! Accursed beldame! Thou art an accomplice in my
daughter's flight."

"Holy Virgin of the Conception!" ejaculated the offended Martha, "that
such foul aspersions should be thrown on my character, after sixty
years of rigid penitence! May the Lord forgive you, Senor, as I do"--and
she crossed herself with redoubled zeal.

"Forgive me, thou imp of the devil!" thundered Don Manuel, astonished at
her assurance.--"