The Don and his countess concerned themselves very little about such gossip, finding abundant occupation in a course of life which, without the bias one unavoidably entertains for his heroes, is a source of satisfaction to the writer hereof. It was in the lady’s nature to be charitable, being one of those unaffected well wishers of humanity with “abundant means,” whose part in this life seems to be to render everybody in reach as satisfied as themselves, and before Sir Pedro’s discretion and mature knowledge of the world came to her assistance, committed as many philanthropic blunders as would have made her eligible to an abolition chair, or seat in Exeter Hall. Of course I must not be understood to undervalue the good she continued to do in the dark. I have too great a reverence for money to suppose it capable of injury to any recipient under any circumstances, differing in this respect from all medicines whatever, which become poisons in quantity, and are defective in the important item of universal application. The truth is, I am led to this admission by an instance I have now in mind. There was one Don Carlo, (so he called himself: the fellow had a dog’s name, but any dog, short of a sheep-worrier, would have been compromised by his acquaintance.) A free-captain, who earned his crust by such little excesses as made the payment of black-mail an acceptable compromise on the part of his favorites, and even in Philip the Second’s time, brought an amount of civil odium upon his head which would have relieved him of that incumbrance, had he not disbanded his company and retired to the provinces to enjoy his honest gains. Here Captain Carlo—who was of a playful temper and delighted in masking—made the acquaintance of our heroine in the likeness of a veteran of the Moorish wars, and found waylaying her steps and asking an alms as many times a day as she walked out unattended (in as many different characters, of course,) so much more profitable, to say nothing of the safety of the proceeding, than poniarding a foot-passenger, or roasting a villager to discover hidden treasure, that he became a pattern of morality to the country round, and is currently said to have refrained more than once, when sorely tempted by the purse she carried, from cutting his benefactress’ slender throat; in this respect showing himself wiser than the avaricious owner of the goose Æsop tells us of. Captain Carlo, however, lost his golden eggs, as did many others of scarcely less merit, when Sir Pedro de Padilh brought, as has been hinted, his longer head and more comprehensive benevolence to the aid of his young wife’s virtuous designs.