Page:Tales of old Lusitania.djvu/11



once lived a good, honest man, who had had so many children that all the men in the neighbourhood had been asked to stand godfather to one or another of them.

So, when another child, a girl, was born to him, the poor man, not knowing whom to ask to be godfather, went out into the high road, and walked along with the child in his arms, with the intention of asking the first man he met to be godfather. It so happened that the first man he met in the road was a friar, who not only acceded to his request, but took the child to be baptised, and gave her the name of Antonia. The friar then took leave of the man with these words: "Bring up the girl with the greatest care, and when she is thirteen years old I shall return for her, and see that she gets a good situation."

Thirteen years had elapsed, and the man, finding that the godfather did not return as he had promised, resolved to send his daughter into service; and,