The worthy Knight's ideas as to beauty by no means coincided with those of his daughter. Sir Thomas thought that to look well, a man must not be--to use his own phrase--"lass-like and finnicking." It was all very well for a woman to have a soft voice, a pretty face, or a graceful mien: but let a man be tall, stout, well-developed, and tolerably rough. So that the finely arched eyebrows, the languishing liquid eyes, the soft delicate features, and the black silky moustache, which were the characteristics of Don Juan's face, found no favour with Sir Thomas, but were absolute perfection in the captivated eyes of Blanche. When those dark eyes looked admiringly at her, she could see no fault in them; and when a voice addressed her in flattering terms, she could readily enough overlook wrong accents and foreign idioms. "Most beautiful lady!" said Don Juan, addressing himself to Blanche, and translating literally into English the usual style of his native land. The epithet gave Blanche a little thrill of delight. No one--except the mythical inhabitants of the airy castles--had ever spoken to her in this manner before. And undoubtedly there was a zest in the living voice of another human being, which was unfortunately lacking in the denizens of Fairy Land. Blanche had never sunk so low in her own opinion as she did when she tried to frame an answer. She was utterly at a loss for words. Instead of the exquisitely appropriate language which would have risen to her lips at once if she had not addressed a human being, she could only manage to stammer out, in most prosaic fashion, a hope that he was better. But her consciousness of inferiority deepened, when Don Juan replied promptly, with a low bow, and the application of his left hand to the place where his heart was supposed to be, that the sight of her face had effected a full and immediate cure of all his ills. Oh, for knowledge what to say to him, with due grace and effect! Why was she not born a Spanish lady? And what would he think of her, with such plebeian work as this in her hand! "How he must despise me!" thought silly Blanche. "Why, I have not even a fan to flutter." Don Juan was quite at his ease. Shyness and timidity were evidently not in the list of his failings. "I think me fortunate, fair lady," sighed he, with another bow, "that this the misfortune me has made acquainted with your Grace. In my country, we say to the ladies; Grant me the soles of your foots. But here the gentlemen humble not themselves so low. I beseech your Grace, therefore, the favour to kiss you the hand." Blanche wondered if all Spanish ladies were addressed as "your Grace." [Note 1.] How delightful! She held out her hand like a queen, and Don Juan paid his homage. "Your Grace see me much happinessed. When I am again in my Andalusia, I count it the gloriousest hour of my life that I see your sweet country and the beautifullest of his ladies."