ince Carlos was nine months old. She
was poor--poor even to raggedness. One day she said to her son,
"I have named you Carlos because I love you. For me, no name is
prettier than yours. Every letter in it means something." Carlos asked
his mother to tell him the meaning of his name; but she said to him,
"I'll tell it to you later. First go to the king's palace, and there
beg something for us to eat. O my son! if you only knew the miseries I
have had to endure to bring you up, you would not refuse this request
of your poor mother," she said, weeping.

Carlos pitied his mother very much, so he ran towards the king's
palace to beg some food; but when he reached the gate, he hesitated
to enter. He was ashamed to beg, so he went and stood silently under
the orange-tree which was not far from the princess's window. "If
I should obey my mother's request," he said to himself, "what would
the princess say? She would probably say to me, 'You are too young to
beg.' What a disgrace then would it be for me!" As Carlos was looking
at the declining sun with tears in his eyes, the princess raised her
window and unintentionally spit on his head. Carlos's eyes flashed. He
looked at the princess sternly, and said, "If the Goddess of the Sea,
who has a star on her forehead [92] and a moon on her throat, does
not dare to spit on me, how can you--you who are but the shadow of
her power and beauty?"

At these harsh words the princess fainted. When she came to herself,
she cried. Her tears were like drops of dew falling from the leaves
in the morning. Her father entered her room, and found her in her
sorrow. "Why do you weep, Florentina?" asked Don Fernando.

"O Father!" answered Florentina, "my heart is broken. I have been
disgraced."

"Why should you say so?" replied her father. "Who broke your heart,
and who disgraced you?"

"There's a man under the orange-tree," answered the princess, "who
said to me these words"--and she repeated what Carlos had said to her.

The king instantly ordered Carlos to be seized and brought into his
presence. Carlos stood fearless before him, and answered all his
questions. Don Fernando at last said, "If within a week you cannot
show me that what you said to my daughter is true, you'll be hanged
without mercy."

These words frightened Carlos. With tears in his eyes and with his
thoughts devoted to God, who alone could give him consolation, he
walked down the shore of the Golden River. He sat down to res