"Patricio, consoled by this promise, kissed with transport the hand of Luisita, who returned his caresses, in order to keep up his spirits, and then entered the house with Jacintha and the girl. The poor dupe took patience, as directed, and sat himself down on a stone, a few yards from the door, where he waited for a considerable time, never dreaming of the possibility of their playing him a trick. He only wondered at the stay of Don Gaspard, and began to fear that this cursed brother had lost his appetite with his passion. "Ten o'clock, eleven o'clock, the hour of midnight, sounded; and not until then did his confidence begin to evaporate, and some slight doubts of the good faith of his lady to infuse themselves into his mind. All was darkness around him; when, approaching the door, he entered on tip-toe, and found himself in a narrow passage, in the middle of which his hand encountered a staircase. He dared not ascend it; but, listening attentively, his ears were greeted with the discordant concert which might be expected to proceed from a barking dog, a mewing cat, and a crying child, all performing their parts to admiration. He felt that he was deceived; and he was convinced of the fact when, having explored the passage to its termination, he found himself in another street, parallel with that in which he had, so long, waited for his love. "The ghost of his money rose in judgment against him; and he returned to his own house, moralising on the deceptive influences of rose-coloured stockings. He knocked at the door; it was opened by his wife, a chaplet in her hand, and tears in her eyes. 'Ah! Patricio,' she said, in a voice which told her affliction; 'how can you thus abandon your home? how can you thus neglect your wife--your children? Where have you been from six this morning, when you left us?' The husband, whom this question would have puzzled to answer satisfactorily, and who was, besides, somewhat ashamed of himself, had not a word to say; so he undressed, and got into bed in silence. His wife, however, was not in want of a text; and she read him a lecture, the continuous hum of which, as you perceive, has soothed him to sleep." [Illustration: Patricio lulled to sleep by his wife's lecture]