"Gently, gently, Emilia!" returned Paco. "Paniagua was lieutenant of the third regiment of infantry of Flanders, and a very brave man."
"No, dear, no," interposed Nuncita, "to put the matter right, he was of the Royal Guard."
"Was he not an archer?"
"No, dear heart, I say he was of the Royal Guard."
Don Cristobal hid his amusement under a fit of coughing, and Manuel Antonio and the young people laughed heartily.
"Paniagua was a very remarkable man," continued Paco. "He was endowed with a decision of character befitting soldiers. The day that he arrived, he saw Nuncia at the window in the morning, and in the evening he managed to give her, in the portico of San Rafael after nones, a letter of declaration which ran thus:
"'Señorita, in confusion and fear and doubting if in your kind condescension you will pardon my boldness, I confess that my only joy is in loving you.'"
"Oh! you rogue! what a memory you have!" exclaimed Nuncita, now fairly overcome.
The fact was, Paco, to whom, after many entreaties, "the child" had shown the letters she had kept of Paniagua's, learnt the original document by heart and recited it everywhere to the great delight of his friends.
"He was what may be called a resolute man. The character of a person is shown like that. How different to the soldiers of the present day, who before proposing to a girl, dangle about for a whole year and then delay saying: 'Child, when shall we go to church?'"