sieve and shears, and erect figures for the taking in of shadows with a glass. Torribio, concluding that so well provided a girl would be a very advantageous match for a man like himself, who could scarcely scrape wherewithal to support life by his own profession, though he was as good a thief-taker as the best of them, made her an offer of marriage, and she was nothing loath, nor prudishly coy. They flew on the wings of inclination and convenience to Toledo, where they were joined together; and you behold in me the happy pledge of holy and lawful matrimony. They fixed themselves in a shop on the outskirts of the town; where my mother commenced her career by selling the said washes, creams, tapes, laces, silk, thread, toys, and pedler's ware; but trade not being brisk enough to live comfortably by it, she turned fortune-teller. This drew her customers, got her countenance, credit, crowns, and pistoles: a thousand dupes of either sex soon trumpeted up the reputation of Cosclina; for so my gypsy mamma had the honor to be named. Some one or other came every day to bargain for the exercise of her skill in the black art; at one time a nephew at his wit's and purse's end, wanting to know how soon his uncle was to set off post for the other world, and leave behind him wherewithal to piece his worn-out fortunes; at another, some yielding, lovesick girl, to inquire whether the swain who kept her company, and had promised to marry her, would keep his word or be false-hearted. You will take notice, if you please, that my mother always sold good luck for good money: if the accomplishment trod on the heels of the prediction, well and good; if it was fulfilled according to the rule of contraries, she was always cool, though the parties were ever so violently in a passion, and told them plainly that it was her familiar's fault, not hers; for though she paid him the highest wages, and bound him by potent spells to stir up the caldron of futurity from the bottom, like earthly cooks, he would sometimes be careless or out of humor, and apportion the ingredients wrongly.