"This one is for your work here, the other to relieve you from any care
concerning means of living, while pursuing your studies in Venice and
Florence. Don't make the child wretched, my lad; if you do, you will be
a contemptible, dishonorable rascal, a scoundrel, a.... but you don't
look like a rogue!"

There was a great deal of bustle in Coello's house that evening. The
artist's indolent wife was unusually animated. She could not control her
surprise and wrath. Isabella had been from childhood a great favorite of
Herrera, the first architect in Spain, who had already expressed his love
for the young girl, and now this vagabond pauper, this immature boy, had
come to destroy the prosperity of her child's life.

She upbraided Coello with being faithless to his paternal duty, and
called him a thoughtless booby. Instead of turning the ungrateful rascal
out of the house, he, the dunce, had given him hopes of becoming her
poor, dazzled, innocent daughter's husband. During the ensuing weeks,
Senora Petra prepared Coello many bad days and still worse nights; but
the painter persisted in his resolution to give Isabella to Ulrich, if in
a year and a half he returned from Italy a skilful artist.