“Believe me,” said he, “my dear Raymond, you will hereafter feel the benefits of this temporary degradation. ’Tis true, that as the Condé de las Cisternas you would have been received with open arms; and your youthful vanity might have felt gratified by the attentions showered upon you from all sides. At present, much will depend upon yourself: you have excellent recommendations, but it must be your own business to make them of use to you. You must lay yourself out to please; you must labour to gain the approbation of those, to whom you are presented: they who would have courted the friendship of the Condé de las Cisternas will have no interest in finding out the merits, or bearing patiently with the faults, of Alphonso d’Alvarada.