"Do you know to whom you are beholden, Dolores?" asked the duenna, Senora Torella. "May I ask your name, senor?" And when I told her she said—"It is not for us to thank you. Senor Quesada will do that; but now, can we not help you? You will, of course, allow us to place a carriage at your disposal for your return home, or would you rather that we sent some message to your friends? You have suffered at the hands of the mob." "If you will send a servant with the fly which I borrowed to the police, with some explanation, it will, perhaps, save trouble; and if you will let someone fetch me another fly I can get home all right. But as for thanks, it is sufficient recompense to have been of some service to the senorita. Stay, there is one other matter—give that coachman of yours a severe reprimand. It was his violence in lashing at the crowd which provoked them and led to all this trouble. You are feeling better now, senorita?" She had been lying back in a low chair, gazing at me with an open-eyed stare which I found somewhat embarrassing, and she now roused herself, sat up, smiled, and coloured. "Thanks to you, senor, I am better. But for your help and courage what might not have happened to me? What an escape! And what do I not owe you? I shall never cease to thank the Holy Virgin for having sent you to rescue me." She was clearly an emotional creature, but this kind of exaggerated gratitude was not at all to my liking. "Pray don’t make too much of it. I just happened to be on the spot at the moment, but I did nothing more than anyone else would have done under the same circumstances. Besides, it’s pretty certain that the crowd only meant to frighten you, and nothing serious would have happened even had I not been there." "It is clear that the hand of Heaven guided you," said the duenna, with a solemn earnestness which quite disconcerted me. I did not regard myself as exactly the sort of person Heaven would choose for an instrument; and not caring for the turn of the conversation, I rose to leave. They were loth for me to go, however, and urged me to wait until the brother came home; but I had had enough of it, and went away, not sorry to have succeeded in getting a propitious introduction to Sebastian Quesada. The next day brought Quesada himself to the Embassy; and I met him with deep and genuine interest, heightened considerably by my knowledge of that little secret which Sarita had told me.