Isagani blushed. "He preached me a sermon about the choosing of
a wife. I answered him that there wasn't in Manila another like
her--beautiful, well-bred, an orphan--"

"Very wealthy, elegant, charming, with no defect other than a
ridiculous aunt," added Basilio, at which both smiled.

"In regard to the aunt, do you know that she has charged me to look
for her husband?"

"Doña Victorina? And you've promised, in order to keep your
sweetheart."

"Naturally! But the fact is that her husband is actually hidden--in
my uncle's house!"

Both burst into a laugh at this, while Isagani continued: "That's
why my uncle, being a conscientious man, won't go on the upper deck,
fearful that Doña Victorina will ask him about Don Tiburcio. Just
imagine, when Doña Victorina learned that I was a steerage passenger
she gazed at me with a disdain that--"

At that moment Simoun came down and, catching sight of the two young
men, greeted Basilio in a patronizing tone: "Hello, Don Basilio,
you're off for the vacation? Is the gentleman a townsman of yours?"

Basilio introduced Isagani with the remark that he was not a townsman,
but that their homes were not very far apart. Isagani lived on the
seashore of the opposite coast. Simoun examined him with such marked