"It is a glorious place, old Don," he muttered in a tone of considerable satisfaction, although it betokened great surprise as well.
And a glorious place it was, and most especially beautiful now that the long, low houses of stone and earth, the waving palms, and all the other luxuriance of that southern clime, were bathed in the golden glory of a southern sunset. In a cushioned reclining chair, placed in a shady spot of the broad verandah, lounged a young man, handsome, but for a Spaniard coarse-featured and rather thick-set. However, all defects of person were thrown into the background by a sumptuousness of attire that fairly startled the youth as he at length approached, and delivered his letters.
"And you are the son of Master Pedro, the spice-dealer of El Cuevo!" he breathed forth at last.
The words of that ejaculation were common-place enough, but the tone in which they were uttered, and the look with which they were accompanied, made them so inexpressibly gratifying, and at the same time comical, to the man to whom they were addressed, that he burst into a loud, long laugh before vouchsafing them any other answer.
"Yes, yes," he said at last, recovering himself with an easy nonchalance. "Yes, yes, youngster, I do not mind confessing to you, since you know the fact before my confession, that the worthy old gentleman yonder, with his frugal fare, and his better stuff cloak for holidays, is my father, and a rare good old miser he is, to save the maravedis for my spending. But mind ye, that is between you and me and Saint Peter."
A wondering gaze from a great pair of thoughtful, brilliant eyes was the questioning reply to this intimation. "And for the rest of the world," asked the owner of the eyes after a short pause, "who is your father for the rest of the world?"
Another laugh greeted this query.
"Why, for the rest of the world, being what you have found me, Don Alonzo de Loyala, my father is, like thine own, some long-deceased grandee of Spain, who neglected his duty towards his son as regarded the due endowment of riches to maintain my rank in mine own land."
As this mocking speech ended, Montoro de Diego's cheeks flushed angrily, and he exclaimed—
"Do you then imply that my claims to noble birth are thus also assumed? By St.—"