Porteña ladies do not generally laugh at the mistakes in language made by inexperienced foreigners, their innate good-breeding makes them very tolerant of inaccuracies; but Dolores did laugh at the mistakes made by Lieutenant Gordon, and her laughter was a sign of the mutual confidence existing between them. Besides which Dolores was very fond of laughing, and Gordon liked to hear her laugh, and to see the merriment lighting up her face and shining in her deep grey eyes, half veiled by the long dark lashes which fell over them. "Why do you laugh so much, Dolores?" said Doña Constancia; "I feel sure that when you try to talk English you make far worse mistakes than Mr Gordon does in Spanish." "Indeed she does, Doña Constancia," said Gordon, "fifty times worse." "And then you laugh at me," said Dolores, still laughing; "and it is quite right that you should laugh. If you looked grave and dismal, as if you were some teacher, I should not like it at all, and would never try to speak a word of English." "I will laugh as much as you like if you will only set to work to learn to read English. I found in my trunk to-day a prize that I will give you as soon as you can read one page of it without making more than three mistakes." "A prize! Oh! I will be very good and very diligent; but what is it?" "It is a book." "An English book?" "Yes; it is a novel called 'Evelina.' All the young ladies in England read it, and in my country too." "A novel!" said Doña Constancia, somewhat gravely; "I do not wish Dolores to read novels. I never read a novel." "You never read a novel, Doña Constancia," said Gordon. "Well to be sure you have no novels in Spanish, or hardly any other books either, that I can see." "Oh yes, we have," said Dolores. "Papa has plenty of books in town. Marcelino is always reading them, and is always wanting me to read with him. I used to try just to please him, but oh! I used to get so tired. Long, prosy tales about people that I never heard of, nor ever want to hear of; about Cortes and Pizarro, and Boabdil el Chico, and the Duke of Alva, and the King of Jerusalem, and I don't know how many more. Marcelino says that they were once all real people, and that I ought to know what has happened in the world before I was born, but I would rather read those legends of the saints that Padre Jacinto lends me sometimes, though Marcelino tells me that they are all false. Padre Jacinto was very angry with him for telling me that, but Marcelino knows more than Padre Jacinto does." "Those legends are sanctioned by the Church, Lola," said Doña Constancia, "and so it is very right that you should read them, but you have no need to tell Padre Jacinto what Marcelino says about them." "Or about him either," said Dolores. "Marcelino says that if he had a house of his own he would never allow a padre to come inside his doors."