tent
declared, gave a very faint idea of his wonderful beauty and bewitching
chivalrous grace. Not only women's hearts rushed to him; his frank,
lovable nature also won men. As a rider in the tournament, in games of
ball and quarter staff, he had no peer; for his magnificently formed body
was like steel, and he himself had seen Don John share in playing racket
for six hours in succession with the utmost eagerness, and then show no
more fatigue than a fish does in water. But he was also sure of success
where proof of intellect must be given. He did not understand where Don
John had found time to learn to speak French, German, and Italian.
Moreover, he was thoroughly the great noble. On the pilgrimage which he
made to Loretto he had distributed more than ten thousand ducats among the
poor. The piety and charity which distinguished him--he had told him so
himself--owed to the lady who reared him, the widow of the
never-to-be-forgotten Don Luis Quijada. His eye filled with tears when he
spoke of her. But even she, Barbara, could not love him more tenderly or
faithfully than this admirable woman. Up to the day she insisted upon
supplying his body linen. The finest linen spun and woven in Villagarcia
was used for the purpose, and the sewing was done by her own skilful
hands. Nothing of importance befel him that he did not discuss with Tia
in long letters.--["Tia," the Spanish word for aunt.]

Barbara had listened to the young Spaniard with joyous emotion until, at
the last communication, her heart contracted again.

How much that by right was hers this worm snatched, as it were, from her
lips! What delight it would also have given her to provide her son's
linen, and how much finer was the Flanders material than that made at
Villagarcia! how much more artistically wrought were Mechlin and Brusse
laces than those of Valladolid or Barcelona!

And the letters!

How many Dona Magdalena probably possessed! But she had not yet beheld a
single pen stroke from her son's hand.

Yet she thanked the enthusiastic young panegyrist for his news, and the
emotion of displeasure which for a short time destroyed her joy melted
like mist before the sun when he closed with the assurance that, no
matter how much he thought and pondered, he could find neither spot nor
stain the brilliantly pure character of her son, irradiated by nobility
of nature, the favour of fortune, and renown.

The already vivid sense of happiness which filled her was