"Well, well, I know not," continued Sancho. "The queen hath ever a good will to the great man. And although he is not to be commissioned to go himself to the punishment of that Jack-in-office Bobadilla, men say that the Commendador of Lares, Don Nicolas de Ovando, who is now preparing to set out thither, hath all the virtues under the sun. Wise and prudent and abstemious, and of a winning manner." "Umph!" grunted the spice-dealer. "Don Ovando had needs be a second St. Paul if he is to win justice and mercy for the poor natives out yonder, at the hands of the off-scouring of our streets; and that is what our gentle-hearted queen hath most at heart." Master Sancho nodded his head gravely. "Ah, friend Pedro, I say not but you are right. And that minds me: if my head were not so thick, I might have bethought me to advise yon lad, with the great eyes and the short temper, to seek fortune, like many another of his peers, in those far-off lands across the ocean. I daresay he would have accepted that advice with a better grace than he did my scraps." His neighbour looked up this time more fully than he had yet done, and let his hands rest for a few moments idle on the samples with which he had been so occupied, as he exclaimed with genuine astonishment: "Why, friend Sancho, verily it seems to me that you have taken some queer true interest in yon ragged piece of impudence. I have noted you more than once, ay, than twice, watch him of an evening as he went by till out of sight. And now, when he would have flung your kindness back at you, still talking of him, forsooth. Nay then, had he so treated me he would have been roundly cuffed, I tell thee; and so an end." Broad-shouldered, easy-going Sancho laughed and gave a shrug. "I am not fond of being ready with my fists, friend Pedro; my hands are large, and might hap to be over heavy; besides, I have a broken thumb. But you judge rightly; I have taken a fancy to that set-up, handsome-faced young beggar. And I have watched him, not only of an evening past these doors, but at other hours in the town; and although he rejects help for himself, many a time have I seen him give it to those weaker or more helpless than himself." Meantime, while he was being thus discussed, that same "set-up, handsome-faced young beggar" was remonstrating with his mother against her oft-reiterated lectures to him on humility, and on a studied avoidance of everything that should draw observation upon them. "I will not slink into corners like a thief, nor hide myself in holes like a rat," he exclaimed at last, with haughty indignation. "Hast thou not told me thyself, my mother, that I am an Aragonese?" But Rachel Diego replied with a lip that trembled while it curled: "In truth art thou, my son, a child of a barren land. The heir of territories so stricken from the Maker's hand with poverty, that perchance we waste life's breath in lamenting that treasures so miserable should be wrested from us."