I think it was these same fine eyes and gentleness which first won the heart of the lady Hermosa, and his sincerity that safely kept it. Of where and how they first met, in what words our Don laid his little keep of a castle and patrimony at her feet, (his whole estate would not have paid her upholsterer’s bill,) history discloses nothing. It is only known she married him, and thereby raised a tempest of wrath and despair in the breasts of numberless admirers, who, however, all consented to eat of her cake on the happy occasion. Sir Peter was in nothing changed by the event, but lived as before in his tower, spent not a _maravedi_ of his wife’s income on himself, and contented her by the frequency and tenderness of his interviews. It was his whim to lead this style of life, and she loved him enough to soon make it a whim of her own, the separations not being very remote it must be conceded, as the keep and castle stood perched on opposing hills, in full sight of one another. Such concession in a young wife was certainly praiseworthy, although some were found to be scandalized at its want of precedent. Of the husband’s crotchet I say only, it was a quaint piece of instinctive honor, which a few of his neighbors extolled, and the greater part laughed at as an act of arrant simplicity: although, to my mind, the less said about simplicity the better, by people who lived when dragons and giants were not yet supposed to have retired upon ultimate Thule, and Ponce de Leon’s search after the fountain of youth, (he was looking for it then in Florida!) counted no great waste of time.