The vacillations of a youth are by no means a sign of instability. An unknown world opens up before him, at every step he meets some object, to him, full of novelty. When a prize seems within his grasp he draws back his hands and turns away to enquire into the substance of some fleeting shadow, which seems to him to have all the solidity of a great reality. Disappointments fall upon him, and he loses much that was easily attainable in the pursuit of intangible myths. Yet are these disappointments no loss, they are the lessons by which his ignorance is cleared away, and he grows in knowledge as he grows in years. These disappointments are experience, without which no lesson is perfect. When the beams of the yet invisible sun brighten the sky in the east, men know that the day is at hand. Yet do these beams often raise up mists from earth, moist with the dews of night, which cover their brilliance as with a veil, throwing out a new shadow of darkness; but that darkness is not of the night, it is the herald of the day. Behind that veil rises up the sun, soon to dissipate those shadows, bathing the earth in the full effulgence of his glory. CHAPTER I THE TWO VICEROYS The Señor Don Ciriaco Asneiros was far from satisfied with the part he had taken in the affair of the 1st January. To him there remained no doubt that he had been the dupe of Doña Josefina. On the evening of the 2nd January he rode out to the Quinta de Ponce, determined to come to some explanation with her. She, confident in her own power of fascination, was ready enough to give him the interview he sought, and soon succeeded in soothing his resentment. As they sat under the verandah together she spoke to him of Magdalen. "Why do you not marry, Don Ciriaco?" said she to him; "if you were to marry your position would be secure." "Señora, you know well----" "Of folly I wish to know nothing, Don Ciriaco; be wise and listen to me. What you require is a rich wife; I can get you one. What think you of Magdalen Miranda?" "The Inglesita!" "Why not?" "Think you I have no eyes, Señora? For Don Marcelino there is no other in the world." "Marcelino!" exclaimed Doña Josefina, interrupting him. "Have you also that folly in your head? Even though Marcelino worships the ground she steps on he can never marry her. I know you have great regard for Marcelino; believe me you would be doing him a service if you would help to cure him of that folly." "You said to me, Señora, a rich wife; the old medico is as poor as a rat." "So they say," replied Doña Josefina, "but I know that when Don Alfonso came here he was rich; it is only a few days since that Fausto told me so. You must not mention this to any one, but when his daughter marries, it will be found out what he has done with his wealth." "The medico would not have me for a son-in-law, he hates Spaniards," said Don Ciriaco.