Languages & literature > Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane > Volume 3

GIL B L A S. *1$
whole friendship I may boaft, has granted it,
without any difficulty, on my recommendation
of your morals and capacity. We will go to his
houfe this afternoon.”
■ We -went thither accordingly. I was very gra-
cioufly received, and inftalled in the employment
of the fteward, who had been difmifled. His
office confided in vifitljig the farms, keeping them
in repair, and receiving the rents : in a word, I
was concerned in the country eftate, and every
month gave in rey- aocounts to Don Diego, who
examined tlpem with great attention. This was
what I wiffied. Although my integrity had be.en
fo ill repaid by my laft mailer, I was refolved to
continue always in the fame path.
One day having got notice, that a fire had hap-
fpened in the caftle of Lerma, and that more than
one half of it had been reduced to alhes, J went
thither immediately, ,to take an account of the
damage; and having informed myfelf exadlly,
on the fpot, of ail the circumllances of the fire,
I compofed an ample relation of it, which Mon*
tefer (hewed to the duke o! Lerma. This miniiler,
norwithftanding the afflt£lion he was in, to hear
filch bad news, was flruck with the relation,-and
could not help aflcing yvho was the author ? Don
Diego not only fatisfied him in that particular,
but alfo fpoke fo much in my favour, that his ex¬
cellency remembered me fix months after, on
the occafion of a ftory, which I am going to
recount, and without which* perhaps, I fhould
never have been employed at court. Here it is :
“At that time, there lived in the-ftreet of the
Infantas, an old lady called Inefdla- de Cantarilla,
-Whofe birth was not certainly known. Some faid
that She was the daughter of a lute-maker * and,