Once more the blinds opened.

“Good-afternoon, girls!” cried Don Juan Tafetan to the three girls, who appeared, artistically grouped, at the window.  “This gentleman says that good things ought not to hide themselves, and that you should throw open the blinds.”

But the blind was closed and a joyous concert of laughter diffused a strange gayety through the gloomy street.  One might have fancied that a flock of birds was passing.

“Shall we go there?” said Tafetan suddenly.

His eyes sparkled and a roguish smile played on his discolored lips.

“But what sort of people are they, then?”

“Don’t be afraid, Senor de Rey.  The poor things are honest.  Bah!  Why, they live upon air, like the chameleons.  Tell me, can any one who 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 neighborhood; to which end they made constant use of every window and aperture in the upper part of the house; they sang at night in the balcony; they masked themselves during the Carnival, in order to obtain entrance into the houses of the highest families; and they played many other mischievous pranks peculiar to small towns.  But whatever its cause, the fact was that on the Troya triumvirate rested one of those stigmas that, once affixed on any one by a susceptible community, accompanies that person implacably even beyond the tomb.