“Why, really,” said my grandfather, pondering, “I had a great many things to say as we came along, but they’ve gone out of my head. Do you think she ever read Shakespeare?”
“Not a chance of it,” said Owen.
Here the Señorita laughingly appealed to Frank to know what my grandfather was saying about her.
“Ah,” quoth my grandfather, quoting his friend Shakespeare—
“‘I understand thy looks—the pretty Spanish
Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens
I am not perfect in——’
“She’s an extremely agreeable woman, Frank, I’ll be sworn, if one only understood her,” quoth my grandfather, casting on her a glance full of gallantry.
The Ensign was not so entirely occupied in prosecuting his own love affair as to be insensible to the facilities afforded him for amusing himself at the Major’s expense. Accordingly, he made a speech in Spanish to Carlota, purporting to be a faithful translation of my grandfather’s, but teeming, in fact, with the most romantic expressions of chivalrous admiration, as was apparent from the frequent recurrence of the words “ojos” (eyes), “corazon” (heart), and the like amatory currency.
“There, Major,” said the interpreter, as he finished; “I’ve told her what you said of her.”
The Major endorsed the compliments by laying his hand upon his heart, and bowing with a tender air. Whereupon Carlota, laughing, and blushing a deeper red, made her acknowledgments.
“She says,” quoth Frank, “that she knew the English before to be a gallant nation; but that if all the caballéros (that’s gentlemen) of that favoured race are equal to the present specimen, her own countrymen must be thrown entirely into the shade.”