Then Maria saw some hangings of the apartment moving in front of her,
and perceiving a bulky protuberance, she immediately divined that the
mayoress was hiding behind there, and that the protuberance was caused
by her portly form. Now she discovered the mayor's design, and that it
was probably a caprice of his spouse, and she made a vow not to suffer
herself to be shorn unless she acquired by these means the five
hundred _maravedis_ needful to pay the Arabian physician who would
give her father back his eyesight.

Then the mayor raised his price from a hundred _maravedis_ to a
hundred and fifty, and afterwards to two hundred, and Maria continued
her sweet smiling, shaking of the head, and gestures, and every time
that the mayor bid higher and Maria feigned to be reluctant, she
almost hoped that the mayor would withdraw from his proposition, for
the great grief it caused her to despoil herself of that precious
ornament, notwithstanding that my means of it she might gain her
father's health. Finally the mayor, anxious to conclude the treaty,
for he saw the stirring of the curtains, and knew by them the anxiety
and state of mind of the listener, closed by saying:

"Go to, hussy, I will give thee five hundred _maravedis_. See, once
and for all, if thou canst agree on these terms."

"Be it so," replied Maria, sighing as if her soul would flee from her
flesh with these words--"be it so, so long that nobody doth know that
I remain bald."

"I will give my word for it," said the mayoress, stepping from behind
the curtains with a pair of sharp shears in her hands and a wrapper