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glances here and there, with her hand on her hip, as impudent as the genuine gypsy that she was. At first sight she did not attract me, and I returned to my work; but she, according to the habit of women and cats, who do not come when you call them, but come when you refrain from calling them,—she halted in front of me and spoke to me.
    “ ‘
Compadre
,’ she said in Andalusian fashion, ‘will you give me your chain to hold the keys of my strong-box?’
    “ ‘It is to hold my primer’ [
épinglette
], I replied.
    “ ‘Your
épinglette
!’ she exclaimed, with a laugh. ‘Ah! the señor makes lace, since he needs pins!’ [
épingles
]
    “Everybody present began to laugh, and I felt the blood rise to my cheeks, nor could I think of any answer to make.
    “ ‘Well, my heart,’ she continued, ‘make me seven ells of black lace for a mantilla, pincushion [
épinglier
] of my soul!’
    “And, taking the flower from her mouth she threw it at me with a jerk of her thumb, and struck me between the eyes. Señor, that produced on me the effect of a bullet. I did not know which way to turn, so I sat as still as a post. When she had gone into the factory, I saw the cassia blossom lying on the ground between my feet; I do not know what made me do it, but I picked it up, unseen by my comrades, and stowed it carefully away in my pocket—the first folly!
    “Two or three hours later, I was still thinking of her, when a porter rushed into the guard-house, gasping for breath and with a horrified countenance. He told us that a woman had been murdered in the large room where the cigars were made, and that we must send the guard there. The quartermaster told me to take two men and investigate. I took my two men and I went upstairs. Imagine, señor, that on entering the room I found, first of all, three hundred women in their chemises, or practically that, all shouting and yelling and gesticulating, making such an infernal uproar that you could not have heard God’s thunder. On one side a woman lay on the floor, covered with blood, with an X carved on her face by two blows of a knife. On the opposite side from the wounded woman, whom the best of her comrades were assisting, I saw Carmen in the grasp of five or six women.
    “ ‘Confession! Confession! I am killed!’ shrieked the wounded woman.
    “Carmen said nothing; she clenched her teeth and rolled her eyes about like a chameleon.
    “ ‘What is all this?’ I demanded. I had great difficulty in learning what had taken place, for all the work-girls talked atonce. It seemed that the wounded one had boasted of having money enough in her pocket to buy an ass at the fair at Triana.
    “ ‘I say,’ said Carmen, who had a tongue of her own, ‘isn’t a broomstick good enough for you?’ The other, offended by the insult, perhaps because she was conscious that she was vulnerable on that point, replied that she was not a connoisseur in broomsticks, as she had not the honour to be a gypsy or a godchild of Satan, but that the Señorita Carmencita would soon make the acquaintance of her ass, when the corregidor took her out to ride, with two servants behind to keep the flies away. ‘Well!’ said Carmen. ‘I’ll make watering-troughs for flies on your cheek, and I’ll paint a checker-board on it.’ And with that,
vli, vlan!
she began to draw St. Andrew’s crosses on the other’s face with the knife with which she cut off the ends of the cigars.
    “The case was clear enough; I took Carmen by the arm. ‘You must come with me, my sister,’ I said to her courteously. She darted a glance at me, as if she recognised me; but she said, with a resigned air:
    “ ‘Let us go. Where’s my mantilla?’
    “She put it over her head in such wise as to show only one of her great eyes, and followed my two men, as mild as a sheep. When we reached the guard-house, the quartermaster said that it was a serious matter, and that she must be taken to prison. It fell to my lot again to