THE MAJOR-DOMO'S STORY.
Don Sancho, feeling very anxious about the state in which he saw his sister, hastily summoned her women who at once flocked around her. He confided her to their care, and retired to the apartment prepared for him, while ordering that he should be immediately warned so soon as Doña Clara displayed any signs of recovery.
Don Sancho de Peñaflor was a charming cavalier, gay, merry, enjoying life and repulsing with the egotism of his age and rank, every grief and even every annoyance.
Belonging to one of the first families of the Spanish aristocracy, destined to be one day immensely rich, and through his name to hold the highest offices and make one of those magnificent marriages of convenience, which render diplomatists so happy, by leaving their minds perfectly free for grand political combinations,—he strove, as far as lay in his power, to check the beating of his heart, and not to trouble by any unusual passion, the bright serenity of his existence. Captain in the army, while awaiting something better, and to have the air of doing something, he had followed his father as aide-de-camp to Mexico, when the latter was appointed viceroy of New Spain. But, being yet too young to regard life seriously and be ambitious, he had turned his attention to gambling and flirtations since his arrival in America, which greatly annoyed the Duke, for as the latter had passed the age of love, he had no mercy for young men sacrificing to the idol which he had himself worshipped for so long.
Don Sancho was generally an excellent hearted fellow and good companion, but affected, like all the Spaniards of that period, and perhaps of the present, by caste prejudices, regarding the Negroes and Indians as beasts of burden, created for his use, and disdaining to conceal the contempt and disgust he felt for these disinherited races.
In a word, Don Sancho, in accordance with the precept of his family, always looked above him and never below; he endured his equals, but established an impassable barrier of pride and disdain between himself and his inferiors.
Still, perhaps unconsciously,—for we will not give him the merit of it,—a tender feeling had glided into the cold atmosphere in which he was condemned to live, had penetrated to his heart, and at times threatened to overthrow all his transcendental theories about egotism.
This feeling was nothing else than the affection he felt for his sister,—an affection which might pass for adoration, for it was so truly devoted, respectful and disinterested; to please his sister he would have attempted impossibilities; a simple word that fell from her lips rendered him pliant and obedient as a slave; a desire she manifested became at once an order for him as serious, and perhaps more so, than if it had emanated from the King of Spain and the Indies, although that magnificent potentate haughtily flattered himself that the sun never set on his dominions.
The first words the Count uttered so soon as he found himself alone in his apartment, will show his character better than anything we can add.