If the weekly mails brought me the Spirit of the Times instead of the Literary World, or in other words, I inclined to a sporting habit of speech, I would “lay an even wager” that not one of Graham’s readers has formed a correct idea of the personal appearance of Hilo de Ladron, from the foregoing account of that unscrupulous young gentleman’s proceedings. I say nothing of his morals, but refer merely to the harmony between features and character which Nature tries hard, and generally with success, to maintain, and which constitutes the main prop of the science of physiognomy. But no lawgiver allows more frequent exceptions to established rules than Nature; and thus, instead of being slouchy and red-haired, or big-whiskered and ferocious, Señor de Ladron, seated on the bows of one of De Chaste’s caravels, full sail for Tercera, belied his ill-name by the delicate beauty of his face and person. I use the word beauty, because his straight features, smooth skin and well-shaped hands, were feminine properties not usually looked for in male attire, and in company such as the owner was keeping. The French men-at-arms were well enough, but I would not fancy sleeping a night in the room with the thick-set Walloon standing next; people with such faces, coarse, crafty about the eyes and treacherous at the mouth—by the way, his laugh, always of an evil sort, was twofold, from a seam in the upper lip reaching half-way up the cheek, and exposing the teeth and gums at every contraction of the muscles thereabouts—should be called by names to correspond, and this man’s, Wolfang, showed remarkable foresight in his parents or sponsors. This face, which had not its duplicate any where in ill-looks, would be recognizable as that of an old acquaintance, if muffling, and false-hair and whiskers, frequently changed while begging an alms of Doña Hermosa, had not destroyed all identity with his natural features as now seen, for Wolfang was one with the free-captain who lived at the expense of that estimable if injudicious lady, until Don Peter turned him loose upon the world again. It was reasonable, under the circumstances, he should bear no great love for the truth-loving knight, and it was probably this feeling in common, accidentally communicated, which had first drawn Hilo and himself together. Don Hilo having inherited most of his father’s hate to the latter’s half-brother; not that he could lay claim to much personal cause for antipathy, having seen Sir Pedro but twice in his life, and one of those when little more than an infant, but it came quite easy to this chip-of-the-block to bear malice. With some grains of redeeming quality, it must be allowed, for he was not wanting in that sort of curious courtesy, common to all Spaniards I believe, which makes taking off his hat with a _buènos nòches_ imperative on the very man who carries his hand from his sombrero to his dagger, to plunge the last under your shoulder blade the moment your back is turned.