She was very kind, and she smiled, and sighed, and pushed me off, and squeezed my hand, and was angry--frowning till I was in despair, and then making me happy again with her melting dark eyes beaming kindly, till at last she said that she would try to love me, and asked me whether I would marry her and live in Spain.

I replied that I would; and, indeed, I felt as if I could, only at the time the thought occurred to me where the rhino was to come from, for I could not live, as her father did, upon a paper segar and a piece of melon per day.

At all events, as far as words went, it was a settled thing.

When her father came home, the old servant told him that I had just at that moment arrived, and that, his daughter was in her own room; so she was, for she ran away as soon as she heard her father knock.

I made my bow to the old gentleman, and gave him the segars.