"This is dreadful! Calm yourself, I repeat. The real trouble with you is that you are out of your head."
"Would to God it were so! The contrary, unhappily for me, is the case. I am avaricious, because I possess riches, and do not perform the works of charity I ought to perform; I am proud, because I scorn the addresses of my many suitors, not through virtue, not through modesty, but because I thought them unworthy of my love. God has punished me; God has permitted the third enemy you have named to take possession of me."
"How is this, child? What diabolical notion has entered into your mind? Have you by chance fallen in love? And, if you have, what harm is there in that? Are you not free? Get married, then, and stop talking nonsense. I am certain it is my friend Don Pedro de Vargas who has wrought the miracle. That same Don Pedro is the very devil! I confess I am surprised, though. I did not think matters had gone quite so far as that already."
"But it is not Don Pedro de Vargas I am in love with."
"And with whom, then?"
Pepita rose from her seat, went to the door, opened it, looked to see if any one was listening outside, drew near to the reverend vicar, and, with signs of the deepest distress, in a trembling voice, and with tears in her eyes, said, almost in the ear of the good old man:
"I am hopelessly in love with his son."
"With whose son?" cried the reverend vicar, who could not yet bring himself to believe what he had heard.
"With whose son should it be? I am hopelessly, desperately in love with Don Luis."
Consternation and dolorous surprise were depicted on the countenance of the kind and simple priest. There was a moment's pause; the vicar then said: