LIV.

Young Juan now was sixteen years of age, Tall, handsome, slender, but well knit: he seemed

## Active, though not so sprightly, as a page;

And everybody but his mother deemed Him almost man; but she flew in a rage[45] And bit her lips (for else she might have screamed) If any said so--for to be precocious Was in her eyes a thing the most atrocious.