Our master is a poor refugee, forced to keep in hiding on account of
the part he played in the revolution which the Duc d'Angouleme has
just quelled--a triumph to which we owe some splendid fetes. Though a
Liberal, and doubtless a man of the people, he has awakened my interest:
I fancy that he must have been condemned to death. I make him talk for
the purpose of getting at his secret; but he is of a truly Castilian
taciturnity, proud as though he were Gonsalvo di Cordova, and
nevertheless angelic in his patience and gentleness. His pride is not
irritable like Miss Griffith's, it belongs to his inner nature; he
forces us to civility because his own manners are so perfect, and holds
us at a distance by the respect he shows us. My father declares that
there is a great deal of the nobleman in Senor Henarez, whom, among
ourselves, he calls in fun Don Henarez.
A few days ago I took the liberty of addressing him thus. He raised his
eyes, which are generally bent on the ground, and flashed a look from
them that quite abashed me; my dear, he certainly has the most beautiful
eyes imaginable. I asked him if I had offended him in any way, and he
said to me in his grand, rolling Spanish:
"I am here only to teach you Spanish."
I blushed and felt quite snubbed. I was on the point of making some pert
answer, when I remembered what our dear mother in God used to say to us,
and I replied instead:
"It would be a kindness to tell me if you have anything to complain of."
A tremor passed through him, the blood rose in his olive cheeks; he
replied in a voice of some emotion:
"Religion must have taught you, better than I can, to respect the
unhappy. Had I been a _don_ in Spain, and lost everything in the triumph
of Ferdinand VII., your witticism would be unkind; but if I am only
a poor teacher of languages, is it not a heartless satire? Neither is
worthy of a young lady of rank."