“What name?” asked the Uncle, benevolently.

“P.  Clitheroe,” said Paul under his breath, as if he feared the whole world might know of his disgrace; he looked upon this transaction as nothing short of disgrace, and he wished to keep it a profound secret.

“Oh, yes; I know the name very well.  Well, Mr. Clitheroe, here is your ticket; take good care of it; and here is your money—­you will always pay your money in advance, and weekly, until you redeem your pledge.  I deduct the dollar for the first week.”

Clitheroe took the proffered money, and withdrew.  To his surprise and chagrin he found himself possessed of but nine dollars.  “It will not go far,” thought he with a heavy sigh; “and where is the dollar to come from?  I don’t see that I have gained much by this exchange.”

What he gained was this:  for fifteen weeks he managed by the strictest economy to pay his dollar.  At the end of that time, he no longer found it possible to even pay a dollar and the affair with the Uncle ended with his having lost, not only his watch, but sixteen dollars into the bargain.

* * * * *

A month has passed:  the sun is streaming through the tall narrow windows of a small chapel; the air is flooded with the music that floats from the organ loft, the solemn strains of a requiem chanted by sweet boy-voices; clouds of fragrant incense half obscure the altar, where the priest in black vestments is offering the solemn sacrifice of the Mass for the repose of the soul of one whom Paul had loved dearly ever since he was a child.  There is one chief mourner kneeling before the altar—­it is Paul Clitheroe.

When the Mass is over, while the exquisite silence of the place is broken only by the occasional note of some bird lodging in the branches of the trees without, Paul lingers in profound meditation.  He is not at all the Paul whom we knew but a few months ago; through some mysterious influence he seems to have cast off his careless youth, and to have become a grave and thoughtful man.

From the chapel he wanders into the quiet library on the opposite side of a cloister, where the flowers grow in tangle, and a fountain splashes musically night and day, and the birds build and the bees swarm among the blossoms.  Now we see him chatting with the Fathers as they stroll up and down in the sunshine; now musing over the graves of the Franciscan Friars who founded the early missions on the Coast; now dreaming in the ruins of the orchard—­wandering always apart from the novices and the scholastics, who sometimes regard him curiously as if he were not wholly human but a kind of shadow haunting the place.

His heart grew warm and mellow as he sat by the adobe wall under the red-baked Spanish tiles, richly mossed with age, and contemplated the statue of the Madonna in the trellised shrine overgrown with passion flowers.  There were votive offerings of flowers at her feet, and he laid his tribute there from day to day.  Neither did he neglect to pay his visit to the shrine of St. Joseph, in the cloister, or St. Anthony of Padua, whom he loved best of all, and whose statue stood under the willows by the great pool of gold fish.