ew frail ladies who could be worthy of it." Don Luis added that
there could be few young men who could be capable of commanding it; but
Sebastian had now conceived an admiration for his client.

"Fantasia, vaya! The English have the hearts of poets in the bodies of
beeves. Did your grace ever hear of Dona Juanita--who in the French
war ran half over Andalusia in pursuit of an Englishman? I heard my
father tell the tale. Not his person claimed her, but his heart of a
poet. Well, he married her, and from camp to camp she trailed after
him, while he helped our nation beat Bonaparte. But one day they
received the hospitality of a certain hidalgo, and had removed many
leagues from him by the next night, when they camped beside a river.
Dinner was eaten in the tents, and dessert served up in a fine bowl.
'Sola!' says the Englishman, 'that bowl--it is not ours, my heart?'
'No,' says Juanita, 'it is the hidalgo's, and was packed with our
furniture in the hurry of departing.' 'Por dios!' says the Englishman,
'it must be returned to him.' But how? He could not go himself, for
at that moment there entered an alguazil with news of the enemy. What
then? 'Juanita will go,' says the Englishman, and went out, buckling
his sword. Senor Don Luis, she went, on horseback, all those leagues,
beset with foes, in the night, and rendered back the bowl. I tell you,
the hearts of poets!"

Don Luis, who had been nodding his high approval, now stared. "_Ah,
que_! But the poet was Dona Juanita, it seems to me," he said.

"Pardon me, dear sir, not at all. Our Spanish ladies are not fond of
travel. It was the Englishman who inspired her. He was a poet with a
vision. In his vision he saw her going. Safely then, he could say,
she will go, because he, to whom time was nothing, saw her in the act.
He did not give directions--he went out to engage the enemy. Then she
went--vaya!"

"You may be sure," Sebastian went on, "that my client is a poet and a
fine fellow. You may be sure that the gift of this trifle has touched
his heart. It was not given lightly. The measure of his care is the
measure of its worth in his eyes."

Don Luis allowed the possibility, by raising his eyebrows and tilting
his head sideways; a shrug with an accent, as it were. Then he allowed
Sebastian to clinch his argument by saying that the Englishman seemed
to be getting the better of his emotion; for here was a week, said he,
and he had not once been int