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Doña Rita was of opinion that all that was necessary in the education of girls was to teach them to hem so neatly that the stitches should not show in the finest cambric, and to make conserves of various sorts,—adding, by way of accomplishment, instruction in the drawing of threads and the working of insertions in many and quaint designs, or the modelling of fruits and figures in wax, to be used in the wonderful mimic representation of the scene of the birth of the Saviour made at Christmas. But Doña Feliz held more liberal views, and much as she esteemed accomplishments, considered them of inferior value to the arts of reading and writing, which she had herself acquired with infinite difficulty, at the pain of disobedience to well-beloved parents.

Reading and writing, according to Feliz’s father, were inventions of the arch-enemy, dangerous to men, and fatal to the weaker sex. What could a woman use writing for, asked he, but to correspond with lovers,—when she should only know of the existence of such beings when one was presented as her future husband, by a wise and discreet father. What could a woman desire to read but her prayers?—and those she should know by heart. In vain, therefore, had been Feliz’s appeal to be taught to read and write. At last she and the Señorita Isabel had puzzled out the forbidden lore together, both copying portions of stolen letters, or the crabbed manuscripts in which special prayers to patron saints were written, thus acquiring an exquisite caligraphycaligraphy, and learning the meanings of words as they noticed them appear and reappear in the copies of prayers they knew by heart. By a similar process the art of reading printing was acquired,—all in secret, all with trembling and fear. Isabel, much assisted by Feliz, who was older and had sooner begun her task, had successfully concealed her knowledge until it could be revealed with safety; and great was the indignation and surprise of Feliz’s father, when on her wedding day the bride took up the pen and signed her marriage contract, instead of affixing the decorous cross which had been expected of her,—while the groom, too, was perhaps not over pleased to find himself the husband of a wife of such high acquirements.