"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."

I took his hand, saying:

"In the name of religion also, I beg you to pardon me."

He bowed, opened my _Don Quixote_, and sat down.

This little incident disturbed me more than the harvest of
compliments, gazing and pretty speeches on my most successful evening.
During the lesson I watched him attentively, which I could do the more
safely, as he never looks at me.

As the result of my observations, I made out that the tutor, whom we
took to be forty, is a young man, some years under thirty. My
governess, to whom I had handed him over, remarked on the beauty of
his black hair and of his pearly teeth. As to his eyes, they are
velvet and fire; but he is plain and insignificant. Though the
Spaniards have been described as not a cleanly people, this man is
most carefully got up, and his hands are whiter than his face. He