e nights afterwards, as I entered my employer's house
I met a young woman coming out of the doorway of the patio; she was
thickly veiled and my notice was drawn to her by her tall and beautiful
figure and because she was weeping so violently that her body shook
with her sobs. I was already well accustomed to such sights, for many
of those who sought my master's counsel had good cause to weep, and I
passed her without remark. But when I was come into the room where he
received his patients, I mentioned that I had met such a person and
asked if it was any one whom I knew.

'Ah! nephew,' said Fonseca, who always called me thus by now, and indeed
began to treat me with as much affection as though I were really of
his blood, 'a sad case, but you do not know her and she is no paying
patient. A poor girl of noble birth who had entered religion and taken
her vows, when a gallant appears, meets her secretly in the convent
garden, promises to marry her if she will fly with him, indeed does go
through some mummery of marriage with her--so she says--and the rest
of it. Now he has deserted her and she is in trouble, and what is more,
should the priests catch her, likely to learn what it feels like to die
by inches in a convent wall. She came to me for counsel and brought some
silver ornaments as the fee. Here they are.'

'You took them!'

'Yes, I took them--I always take a fee, but I gave her back their weight
in gold. What is more, I told her where she might hide from the priests
till the hunt is done with. What I did not like to tell her is that her
lover is the greatest villain who ever trod the streets of Seville.
What was the good? She will see little more of him. Hist! here comes
the duchess--an astrological case this. Where are the horoscope and the
wand, yes, and the crystal ball? There, shade the lamps, give me the
book, and vanish.'

I obeyed, and presently met the great lady, a stout woman attended by
a duenna, gliding fearfully through the darkened archways to learn the
answer of the stars and pay many good pesos for it, and the sight of her
made me laugh so much that I forgot quickly about the other lady and her
woes.

And now I must tell how I met my cousin and my enemy de Garcia for the
second time. Two days after my meeting with the veiled lady it chanced
that I was wandering towards midnight through a lonely part of the old
city little frequented by passers-by. It was scarcely safe to be thus
alone in such a