myself and increased by fortunate speculations.  I cannot complain of fate, and the Lord has helped me.  Everything is for my poor Visitacion.  I should delight in seeing her married to a good man; but she will not leave me.  She is drawn to the Church, and that is my fear.  Do not be surprised, Tomasa; I, a prince of the Church, fear to see how she is attracted by devotion, and I do all I can to turn her from it.  I respect a religious woman, but not one who is only happy in the Church.  A woman ought to live; she ought to be happy as a mother.  I have always looked badly on nuns.”

“Let her be, senor,” said the gardener’s widow; “there is nothing strange in her love for the Church.  Living as she does she could scarcely do otherwise.”

“For the present time, I have no fear.  I am by her side, and her being fond of the society of the nuns signifies very little to me.  But I may die to-morrow, and just imagine what a splendid mouthful poor Visitacion and her millions would be, left alone, with this predilection to religious life, of which those cunning people would be sure to take advantage!  I have seen a great deal.  I belong to the class, and I am in the secret.  There is no lack of religious orders who devote themselves to hunting heiresses for the greater glory of God, as they say.  Besides, there are many foreign nuns with great flapping caps travelling about here, who are lynxes for that sort of work, and I am terrified lest they should pounce on my daughter.  I belong to the ancient Catholicism, to that pure Spanish religion, free from all modern extravagances.  It would be sad to have spent my life in saving, only to fatten the Jesuits or those sisters who cannot speak Castilian.  I do not wish my money to share the fate of that of the sacristans in the proverb.  For this reason, to the annoyance I feel at my struggles with this inimical Chapter, I must add the distress I feel at my daughter’s feeble character.  Probably she will be hunted; some rake will laugh at me and possess himself of my money.”

Excited by his gloomy thoughts, he gave vent to an interjection both caustic and obscene, a memory of his soldiering days; in the presence of the gardener’s widow there was no need to control himself, and the old woman was accustomed to this relief of his temper.

“Let us see,” he said imperiously after a long silence.  “You, who know me better than anyone, am I as bad as my enemies suppose?  Do I deserve that the Lord should punish me for my faults?  You are one of God’s souls, simple and good, and you know more of all this by your instinct than all the doctors of theology.”

“You bad, Don Sebastian?  Holy Jesus!  You are a man like all others, neither more nor less; but you are sincere, all of one piece, without deceit or hypocrisy.”

“A man—­you have said it.  I am a man like the rest.  We who attain a certain height are like the saints on the fronts of the churches:  from below we cause admiration for our beauty, but viewed closely we cause horror from the ugliness of the stones corroded by time.  However much we wish to sanctify ourselves, keeping ourselves apart, we are still nothing but men—­creatures of flesh and blood like those who surround us.