There were tarts, fritters, jumbles, ginger-bread, sponge-cake, and wine in abundance for the common people. The gentry regaled themselves selves with liquors, chocolate, orange cordial, honey, and various kinds of aromatic and delicate punches.
Don Pedro was like a boy—sprightly, gallant, and full of jests. It did not look as if there were much truth in what he had said in his letter to the dean in regard to his rheumatism and other ailments. He danced the fandango with Pepita, as also with the most attractive among her maids and with six or seven of the village girls. He gave each of them, on reconducting her, tired out, to her seat, the prescribed embrace, and to the least serious of them a couple of pinches, though this latter forms no part of the ceremonial. He carried his gallantry to the extreme of dancing with Doña Casilda, who could not refuse him; who, with her two hundred and fifty pounds of humanity, and the heat of July, perspired at every pore. Finally, Don Pedro stuffed Currito so full, and made him drink so often to the health of the newly married pair, that the muleteer Dientes was obliged to carry him home to sleep off the effect of his excesses, slung like a skin of wine across the back of an ass!
The ball lasted until three in the morning; but the young couple discreetly disappeared before eleven, and retired to the house of Pepita. There Don Luis re-entered, with light, pomp, and majesty, and as adored lord and master, the room which, little more than a month before, he had entered in darkness, and filled with terror and confusion.
Although it is the unfailing use and custom of the village to treat every widow or widower who marries again to a terrible charivari, leaving them not a moment's rest from the cow-bells during the first night after marriage, Pepita was such a favorite, Don Pedro was so much respected, and Don Luis was so beloved, that there were no bells on this occasion, nor was there the least attempt made at ringing them—a singular circumstance, which is recorded as such in the annals of the village.
EPILOGUE.
LETTERS OF MY BROTHER
The history of Pepita and Luisito should, properly speaking, end here. This epilogue is not necessary to the story; but, as it formed part of the bundle of papers left at his death by the reverend dean, although we refrain from publishing it entire, we shall at least give a sample of it.
No one can entertain the least doubt that Don Luis and Pepita, united by an irresistible love, almost of the same age, she beautiful, he brave and handsome, both intelligent and full of goodness, would enjoy during a long life as much peace and happiness as falls to the lot of mortals. And this supposition, which, for those who have read the preceding narrative, is a logically drawn deduction from it, is converted into a certainty for him who reads the epilogue.
The epilogue gives, besides, some information respecting the secondary personages of the narrative, in whose fate the reader may possibly be interested. It consists of a collection of letters addressed by Don Pedro de Vargas to his brother the dean, dating from the day of his son's marriage to four years later.
Without prefixing to them the dates, although following their chronological order, we shall transcribe here a few short extracts from these letters, and thus bring our task to an end:
Luis manifests the most lively gratitude toward Antoñona, without whose services he would not now possess Pepita. But this woman, the accomplice of the sole fault of which either he or Pepita had been guilty in their lives, living as she did on the most familiar footing in the house, and fully acquainted with all that had taken place, could not but be in the way. To get rid of her, then, and at the same time to do her a service, Luis set to work to bring about a reconciliation between her and her husband, whose daily fits of drunkenness she had refused to put up with. The son of Master Cencias gave his promise that he would get drunk hardly ever; but he would not venture on an absolute and uncompromising never. Confiding in this half-promise, however, Antoñona consented to return to the conjugal roof. Husband and wife being thus reunited, it occurred to Luis that a homeopathic principle of treatment might prove efficacious with the son of Master Cencias, in curing him radically of his vice; for, having heard it affirmed that confectioners detest sweets, he concluded that, on the same principle, tavern-keepers ought to detest whisky; and he sent Antoñona and her husband to the capital of the province, where, at his own cost, he set them up in a fine tavern. Both live there together happily; they have succeeded in obtaining many patrons, and will probably become rich. He still gets drunk occasionally; but Antoñona, who is the stronger of the two, is accustomed at such times to give him a good trouncing, to help on his cure.