: he did not call me an infant, and
treat me with contempt, as our cross old confessor at the Castle used to do. I
verily believe, that if I had lived in Murcia a thousand years, I never should
have liked that fat old father Dominic!«
    »I confess, that father Dominic had not the most pleasing manners in the
world; but he was honest, friendly, and well-meaning.«
    »Ah! my dear mother, those qualities are so common -«
    »God grant, my child, that experience may not teach you to think them rare
and precious: I have found them but too much so. But tell me, Antonia, why is it
impossible for me to have seen the abbot before?«
    »Because since the moment when he entered the abbey, he has never been on
the outside of its walls. He told me just now, that from his ignorance of the
streets, he had some difficulty to find the strada di San Iago, though so near
the abbey.«
    »All this is possible, and still I may have seen him before he entered the
abbey: in order to come out, it was rather necessary that he should first go
in.«
    »Holy virgin! as you say, that is very true. - Oh! But might he not have
been born in the abbey?«
    Elvira smiled.
    »Why, not very easily.«
    »Stay, stay! Now I recollect how it was. He was put into the abbey quite a
child; the common people say, that he fell from heaven, and was sent as a
present to the Capuchins by the Virgin.«
    »That was very kind of her. And so he fell from heaven, Antonia? He must
have had a terrible tumble.«
    »Many do not credit this; and I fancy, my dear mother, that I must number
you among the unbelievers. Indeed, as our landlady told my aunt, the general
idea is, that his parents, being poor, and unable to maintain him, left him just
born at the abbey-door; the late superior, from pure charity, had him educated
in the convent, and he proved to be a model of virtue, and piety, and learning,
and I know not what else besides. In consequence, he was first received as a
brother of the order, and not long ago was chosen abbot. However, whether this
account or the other is the true one - at least all agree, that when the monks
took him under their care