or philosophical, but were enunciated with much self-deceptive sophistry and based on affection, which is all that is requisite in feminine debates as a general thing. The household was put in complete order and turned over with the estate to the care of a trusty major-domo, and an old cavalier, a relative of the countess, who had been summoned to attend, was pressed into service after a feeble remonstrance; he had been a great beau in his day and could not find it in his heart to long oppose the will of a lady; and dispatched to charter a vessel in which to accompany them to the Azores. The friends, attended by a detachment of the Hermandad for protection along the road, followed close at his heels, and were soon after out of sight of the shores of Spain, and as incredulous of surviving the miseries of the voyage as any ladies of the present day. Somewhere about this time, an old woman saying aves as fast as her trembling fingers could slip the beads, in the cabin of a crazy ship flying before a furious gale straight for the rocky shores of Graciosa, might have given the needful clue to this labyrinth of conjecture: so might, if he had possessed the capacity, the poor wretch who sat watching her in greater awe than the tempest excited, from the crib in which he lay bound, and who had wondered time and again in his imbecile way, what it was she mumbled to herself when hobbling up and down the cabin floor in fair weather, her chin elevated in the air. She never cared for his overhearing, a glance was enough at any moment to make him cower and blink in fear of the crutch which, during Señor Inique’s absence, not seldom corrected his waywardness. This vessel with others, had been driven from her moorings off Praya, and parting company became unmanageable: one afternoon the peaks of Graciosa suddenly appeared through a rift in the surging mist around, in terrible proximity, and coasting the island a few leagues, by daybreak the next morning the ship struck and immediately after took its final plunge. They had fallen into a gap of the rock-bound shores, and in the comparatively quiet sea, contrived, like St. Paul’s companions, to reach shore on whatever came to hand. The crew congratulated themselves on every soul being saved but the captain, who was below deck when the wreck went down; it was supposed he had descended to secure treasure of some sort, but the crone who listened to their talk while they all dried themselves about a fire, knew better; for at the first alarm, while clambering up the cabin stairs, she encountered the captain in wild haste to save his patron’s son. She tore herself loose from his clutch and had seen neither of them again.