si4 The ADVENTURES of
tain Don Antonia Ccello, who carried me from the Afturias to Madrid, where be was born. Six months afler o«ir-arrival in that city, having had an affair of honour brought upon him by his own violent hu- m3ur, he killed a cavalier, -who had taken it in his head to favour me with lb me attention. This gentleman being related to pcrlons of great quality and credit, my hufband, who had no intereft, fled into Catalonia, with all the money, and jewels he could find in the houfc; embarked at Barcelona, eroded into Italy, eagaged in the fcrvicc of the Venetians* and at lad loft his life in the.Morea, fighting againft the Turks. In the mean time, our landed eftate was confifcatcd, and I had but a very fmall jointure left. What could I do in fuc.h a trotfHlefome extremity? I could not return into the Afturias : for what pur-
• pofe go thither? All the confolation I fhould have received from my family, would have been no’more
• than fympaihy and condolance; on the other hand, I had been too well educated to be capable of embracing a life of libertinism. 'Upon what determi-
• nation then could I fix? I have turned aftrefs, to preserve my chara&cr.”
The Marquis de Marialva, who loft not a word of the whole difeourfe, implicitly believed every f> liable of what Don Antonio’s widow was pleafed to utter. He even joined in the converfation. and afked rf I was in any bufinefs in-Grenada, or elfewhere. I was in fomc doubt, at that inftant, whether or no I fhould tell a lye; but thinking that unncceffaiy, I fpoke truth, recounting every circumftancc of my entering into, and quitting the archbifnop’s fcrvicc; which afforded infinite diveifion to .the Portugucze nobletnan. It is true, that notwhhftanding my pro- mife to Melchior, I made myfclf a little merry at the cxpence of his grace. But the rcoft diveiring part of the feene was, that Laura, who thought I invented a ftor y in imitation of her, 0i it out into loud fits of