In this strange way marriages were then made, and still more extraordinary is it that they usually turned out as happily as did this one. For when, soon afterwards, Luis Quijada arrived in Valladolid, where his wife went to meet him, they were so attracted to each other, he by her beauty and womanly discretion, she by his generosity and noble bearing, that the Christian love and absolute confidence they then plighted to each other lasted unto death. Notwithstanding that, there came a time when a severe test was put to this mutual confidence. At the end of 1553 or the beginning of 1554 the posts from Flanders began to come more frequently than ever to Villagarcia. Luis Quijada was following Charles V in his last campaign against the French, and the husband never lost an opportunity of letting his wife have news of the dangers he ran or the triumphs he gained. She was the first person in Spain to know of the taking of Terouanne and the tower of Hesdin, where Luis Quijada so much distinguished himself, and to her came the first rumours of the return of the Emperor and his projected retirement to a convent. But among all this news which pleased her as a wife, and added to the lustre of her house, one day there came unexpectedly a letter which plunged her in perplexity. It was the letter which Luis Quijada had written from Brussels, probably in February, 1554, although the date is unknown. Quijada announced to his wife that before long, but after she had heard again, a man who had his entire confidence would present himself at Villagarcia, and that this man would make over to her a child of seven or nine years old, called Jeromín, and he begged her by the love she bore and which she had always shown him to accept the boy as a mother would, and as such to protect and educate him. He also said that the boy was the son of a great friend, whose name he could not reveal, but whose position and prestige he guaranteed. And he added that though the education of Jeromín was to be that of a gentleman, his father did not wish him to dress as such, but to wear the garb of a peasant, in which he would present himself. It was the desire of the father, moreover, that with all gentleness and discretion the child Jeromín should be urged to enter the Church, but not if it were not his vocation or the Divine wish. The reading of this letter produced in the warm heart of Doña Magdalena a first and keen sense of pleasure. She had no children, nor had hopes of ever having any, and through the door, when she least expected it, was coming to her one of God's own little ones, sent by him whom she loved best, her own husband. Doña Magdalena's imagination, spurred on by the charitable anxiety to protect the weak and love the oppressed, made her see Jeromín already in her arms while Luis Quijada looked on contentedly, smiling at her lovingly and gratefully.