doesn't eat sin? The poor girls are virtuous enough. And even if they
did sin, they fast enough to make up for it."

"Let us go, then."

A moment later Don Juan Tafetan and Pepe Rey were entering the parlor of
the Troyas. The poverty he saw, that struggled desperately to disguise
itself, afflicted the young man. The three girls were very lovely,
especially the two younger ones, who were pale and dark, with large
black eyes and slender figures. Well-dressed and well shod they would
have seemed the daughters of a duchess, and worthy to ally themselves
with princes.

When the visitors entered, the three girls were for a moment abashed:
but very soon their naturally gay and frivolous dispositions became
apparent. They lived in poverty, as birds live in confinement, singing
behind iron bars as they would sing in the midst of the abundance of
the forest. They spent the day sewing, which showed at least honorable
principles; but no one in Orbajosa, of their own station in life, held
any intercourse with them. They were, to a certain extent, proscribed,
looked down upon, avoided, which also showed that there existed some
cause for scandal. But, to be just, it must be said that the bad
reputation of the Troyas consisted, more than in any thing else, in
the name they had of being gossips and mischief-makers, fond of
playing practical jokes, and bold and free in their manners. They wrote
anonymous letters to grave personages; they gave nicknames to every
living being in Orbajosa, from the bishop down to the lowest vagabond;
they threw pebbles at the passers-by; they hissed behind the window
bars, in order to amuse themselves with the perplexity and annoyance of
the startled passer-by; they found out every thing that occurred in the