I doubt not that my mother has a thousand times wished she had had a girl instead of me, which would, undoubtedly, have been much more to her advantage, and who might have been a support to her, as she herself was to my grandmother, of whom I feel it incumbent on me to afford you a more detailed account. She was one of the finest women of her time in the kingdom, was extremely witty and well-bred. None but young noblemen were admitted into her house, such as wished to improve themselves in politeness and gallantry, and they certainly might be said to be fine gentlemen, after having gone through her course of lessons for a few years. But what is most to be wondered at, is the perfect harmony that reigned among her scholars. While she had given her mind up to perfect these young folks, she lay in with my mother somehow or other; and, as she herself scarcely knew how this happened, she gave every one of these gentlemen the honour of it separately, satisfying each of them that her daughter resembled him in some particular. “Do but look at her mouth,” would she say to one; “observe but her eyes,” would she say to another; “you cannot pretend to disown this child;” and the more to induce them to believe her, she took great pains always to call her by the name of the cavalier who was present; and if there happened to be more than one, which was not uncommonly the case, she was called Donna Marcella, which was her christian name; as for the Donna, it would be unjust, indeed, to dispute her right to that title, since she, without doubt, was the daughter of a person of quality. But to let you a little more into the secret of her birth, you must know, that among my grandmother’s gallants there was one whom she loved best of any; and as this gentleman was a Guzman, she considered that she might conscientiously make her daughter descend from so illustrious a house. At least this is what she afterwards told my mother in confidence, though she confessed at the same time, that for ought she knew, she might have been begot by a certain lord, who was a near relation to the dukes of Medina Sidonia.