t crawl on your knees to ask for pensions and
governorships, and transact the affairs of the state by putting your
hands into its coffers."

"Senor!" growled Don Felix, angrily, as his hand played with his
sword-belt.

"Tush!" said the young man, scornfully turning on his heel.

The folding-doors were thrown open, and all conversation ceased at the
entrance of Don Roderigo Calderon.

This remarkable personage had risen from the situation of a confidential
scribe to the Duke of Lerma to the nominal rank of secretary to the
King--to the real station of autocrat of Spain. The birth of the
favourite of fortune was exceedingly obscure. He had long affected
to conceal it; but when he found curiosity had proceeded into serious
investigation of his origin, he had suddenly appeared to make a virtue
of necessity; proclaimed of his own accord that his father was a common
soldier of Valladolid, and even invited to Madrid, and lodged in his
own palace, his low-born progenitor. This prudent frankness disarmed
malevolence on the score of birth. But when the old soldier died,
rumours went abroad that he had confessed on his death-bed that he
was not in any way related to Calderon; that he had submitted to an
imposture which secured to his old age so respectable and luxurious an
asylum; and that he knew not for what end Calderon had forced upon him
the honours of spurious parentship. This tale, which, ridiculed by most,
was yet believed by some, gave rise to darker reports concerning one on
whom the eyes of all Spain were fixed. It was supposed that he had
some motive beyond that of shame at their meanness, to conceal his
real origin and name. What could be that motive, if not the dread of
discovery for some black and criminal offence connected with his earlier
youth, and for which he feared the prosecution of the law? They who
affected most to watch his exterior averred that often, in his gayest
revels and proudest triumphs, his brow would lower--his countenance
change--and it was only by a visible and painful effort that he could
restore his mind to its self-possession. His career, which evinced
an utter contempt for the ordinary rules and scruples that curb even
adventurers into a seeming of honesty and virtue, appeared in some way
to justify these reports. But, at times, flashes of sudden and brilliant
magnanimity broke forth to bewilder the curious, to puzzle the examiners
of human character, and to contrast the general tenor o