On the last day but one of the journey, the
travelling party, which was precisely the original dinner party,
reached a little town ten leagues short of Cuzco. The Corregidor of
this place was a friend of the Alcalde; and through _his_
influence the party obtained better accommodations than those which
they had usually had in a hovel calling itself a _venta_, or in
the sheltered corner of a barn. The Alcalde was to sleep at the
Corregidor's house; the two young cavaliers, Calderon and our Kate, had
sleeping rooms at the public _locanda_; but for the lady was
reserved a little pleasure-house in an enclosed garden. This was a
plaything of a house; but the season being summer, and the house
surrounded with tropical flowers, the lady preferred it (in spite of
its loneliness) to the damp mansion of the official grandee, who, in
her humble opinion, was quite as fusty as his mansion, and his mansion
not much less so than himself.
After dining gaily together at the _locanda_, and possibly taking a
'rise' out of his worship the Corregidor, as a repeating echo of Don
Quixote, (then growing popular in Spanish America,) the young man who
was no young officer, and the young officer who was no young man,
lounged down together to the little pavilion in the flower-garden, with
the purpose of paying their respects to the presiding belle.
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