ost
spirited horse my father has, instead of the mule I am riding to-day."

"I shall be very glad of it," responded Pepita, with a smile of
indescribable sweetness.

At this moment we were joined by the rest of the party, at which I was
secretly rejoiced, though for no other reason than the fear of not being
able to sustain the conversation, and of saying a great many foolish
things, on account of the little experience I have had in conversing
with women.

After our walk my father's servants spread before us on the fresh grass,
in the most charming spot beside the brook, a rural and abundant
collation.

The conversation was very animated, and Pepita sustained her part in it
with much discretion and intelligence. My cousin Currito returned to his
jests about my manner of riding and the meekness of my mule. He called
me a theologian, and said that, seated on mule-back, I looked as if I
were dispensing blessings. This time, however, being now firmly resolved
to learn to ride, I answered his jests with sarcastic indifference. I
was silent, nevertheless, with respect to the promise I had just made
Pepita. The latter, doubtless thinking as I did--although we had come to
no understanding in the matter--that silence for the present was
necessary to insure the complete success of the surprise that I would
create afterward by my knowledge of horsemanship, said nothing of our
conversation. Thus it happened, naturally and in the simplest manner,
that a secret existed between us; and it produced in my mind a singular
effect.

Nothing else worth telling occurred during the day.

In the afternoon we returned to the village in the same manner in which
we had left it. Yet, seated on my easy-going mule and at the side of my
aunt Casilda, I did not experience the same fatigue or sadness as
before.

During the whole journey I listened without weariness to my aunt's
stories, amusing myself at times in conjuring up idle fancies. Nothing
of what passes in my soul shall be concealed from you. I confess, then,
that the figure of Pepita was, as it were, the center, or rather the
nucleus and focus of these idle fancies.--

The noonday vision in which she had appeared to me in the shadiest and
most sequestered part of the grove, brought to my memory all the
visions, holy and unholy, of wondrous beings, of a condition superior to
ours, that I had read of in sacred authors and in the profane classics.
Pepita appeared to the eyes and on th