onvent. Before she went, however,
she was betrothed to the Marquis Don Antonio de Padua, only son of the
Marquis de Colomorano, then eighteen years of age. It was settled
between the two fathers that when Antonio was twenty-four and
Theudelinde twenty, she should be fetched out of her convent, and both
should be united in wedlock by Holy Church. This arrangement was
carried out so far as Theudelinde spending six blameless years in a
most highly respectable convent. She was then brought home, and the
marriage bells were set ringing. But, horror of horrors, when the girl
saw her betrothed husband, she shrieked and ran away! This was not
the man she had promised to marry; this one had a mustache!
(Naturally, for he was an officer in the hussars.)

Theudelinde had never seen a man with a mustache. Six years before,
when she was at home, all the distinguished guests who came to her
father's house, the magnates, the ambassadors, were all smooth-shaved,
so were the man-servants, even the coachman. In the convent there was
only one man, the father confessor; his face was like a glass. And now
they proposed to marry her to a man all hair! Impossible! The saints
and the prophets of old wore beards, that was true; some of them had a
good deal of hair, but none had it only on the upper-lip. The only one
she could remember with this adornment was the servant of the
high-priest in the Stations of the Cross, which, to a pious mind like
Theudelinde's, was conclusive. She would hear no more of the marriage;
the betrothal rings were returned on both sides, and the alliance was
at an end.

After this the countess avoided all worldly amusements. Nothing would
induce her go to a ball, or to the theatre. Nevertheless, she did not
seem inclined to take the veil; she had strong leanings towards this
wicked world, only she wanted one of a different sort, without the
wickedness. She desired out of the general chaos to create an ideal,
and this ideal should be her husband. He should be tender, faithful,
no wine-drinker, no smoker; a man with a smooth face, a pure soul, a
sweet-sounding voice; a gifted, sympathetic, patient, amiable, soft,
romantic, domestic, pious man; prudent, scientific, literary,
distinguished, well-born, much respected, covered with orders, rich,
loyal, brave, and titled. Such a _rara avis_ was impossible to find.
Countess Theudelinde spent the best days of her life seeking a
portrait to fit the frame she had made, but she