have to profess, which I have here sketched for you in the
rough. Many other particulars, no less worthy of consideration, you will
discover for yourself in process of time."

Here the eloquent old gitano closed his discourse, and the novice
replied, that he congratulated himself much on having been made
acquainted with such laudable statutes; that he desired to make
profession of an order so based on reason and politic principles; that
his only regret was that he had not sooner come to the knowledge of so
pleasant a life; and that from that moment he renounced his knighthood,
and the vain glory of his illustrious lineage, and placed them beneath
the yoke, or beneath the laws under which they lived, forasmuch as they
so magnificently recompensed the desire he had to serve them, in
bestowing upon him the divine Preciosa, for whom he would surrender many
crowns and wide empires, or desire them only for her sake.

Preciosa spoke next: "Whereas these senores, our lawgivers," she said,
"have determined, according to their laws that I should be yours, and as
such have given me up to you, I have decreed, in accordance with the law
of my own will, which is the strongest of all, that I will not be so
except upon the conditions heretofore concerted between us two. You must
live two years in our company before you enjoy mine, so that you may
neither repent through fickleness, nor I be deceived through
precipitation. Conditions supersede laws; those which I have prescribed
you know; if you choose to keep them, I may be yours, and you mine; if
not, the mule is not dead, your clothes are whole, and not a doit of
your money is spent. Your absence from home has not yet extended to the
length of a day; what remains you may employ in considering what best
suits you. These senores may give up my body to you, but not my soul,
which is free, was born free, and shall remain free. If you remain, I
shall esteem you much; if you depart, I shall do so no less; for I hold
that amorous impulses run with a loose rein, until they are brought to a
halt by reason or disenchantment. I would not have you be towards me
like the sportsman, who when he has bagged a hare thinks no more of it,
but runs after another. The eyes are sometimes deceived; at first sight
tinsel looks like gold; but they soon recognise the difference between
the genuine and the false metal. This beauty of mine, which you say I
possess, and which you exalt above the sun, and declare