Should I leave this incomparable flower to wither unseen on these rough mountains?
Should I despise the great gift offered me in the eloquent silence of her eyes?
Here was a soul immured; should I not burst its prison?
All side considerations fell off from me; were she the child of Herod I swore I should make her mine; and that very evening I set myself, with a mingled sense of treachery and disgrace, to captivate the brother.

Perhaps I read him with more favourable eyes, perhaps the thought of his sister always summoned up the better qualities of that imperfect soul; but he had never seemed to me so amiable, and his very likeness to Olalla, while it annoyed, yet softened me.
A third day passed in vain--an empty desert of hours.

I would not lose a chance, and loitered all afternoon in the court where (to give myself a countenance) I spoke more than usual with the Senora.

God knows it was with a most tender and sincere interest that I now studied her; and even as for Felipe, so now for the mother, I was conscious of a growing warmth of toleration.

And yet I wondered.