"A miracle!" exclaimed Mariquilla, sadly. "It is true. You are a young gentleman of position, the son of parents who would never consent to see you married to the daughter of Señor Candiola. My father is abhorred all over the city. Everybody flees from us. No one visits us. If I go out they point at me, and look at me with insolent contempt. Girls of my own age will not associate with me, and the young men of the city who go about singing serenades under the windows of their sweethearts, come to mine to utter insults against my father, calling me also dreadful names to my face. Oh, my God, I understand that it would be indeed a miracle for me to be happy! Augustine, we have known each other now for nearly four months, and you have not yet told me the name of your parents. It certainly cannot be as odious as mine. Why do you hide it? If it were necessary that our love should be made public, you would not dare meet the looks of your friends, you would flee with horror from the daughter of Candiola." "Oh, no, don't say that!" cried Augustine, pressing against Mariquilla, and hiding his face in her lap. "Don't say that I am ashamed of loving you. In saying that you insult God. It is not true. To-day our love remains a secret, because it is necessary that it should be so. But when it is necessary to make it known, I will make it known, and defy the anger of my father face to face. Yes, Mariquilla, my parents will curse me, and turn me out of doors. A few nights ago you said to me, looking at that monument which we can see from here, 'When that tower becomes straight, I will leave off loving you.' I swear to you that the strength of my love is more immovable than the equilibrium of yonder tower; for that could fall to the ground, but could never stand upright. The works of man are variable, those of Nature are unchangeable and rest evermore upon an everlasting base. You have seen the Moncayo, that great rock which is near Poniente in the suburb? Well, when Moncayo gets tired of being in that place, and moves and comes walking towards Saragossa, putting one of its feet upon our city and reducing it to powder, then and then only will I cease to love you." By this sort of hyperbole and poetic naturalism my friend expressed his great love, flattering the imagination of the beautiful girl, who responded, leaning forward, moved by an impulse like his own. They were both silent for a moment, then the two, or rather the three of us, exclaimed all together, looking at the tower whose belfry had flung to the winds two signals of alarm. At the same moment a globe of fire ploughed the black space, describing rapid circles.