This last word made him tremble.  “I once desired it,” he answered, “thinking it the most honorable position to which I could aspire, and also my natural vocation.  But now—­God knows whether it be a sin or not—­I would pass through any affliction He might send rather than become one.  But my mother’s heart is fixed upon it more than ever, and soon my family will be wholly dependent upon me.  Ah! young as I am, I have suffered and still suffer.  Far happier is that child in your arms, dying slowly though it may be, than the unfortunate Eugenio.”

“Have a care,” I said, “lest, entering the state of priesthood, you bear with you a heart fixed on the things of this world.  Do not yield to the impulses of a strong imagination, but endeavor to forget whatever might prove a hindrance to you hereafter.”

“Ah, Felicia, my heart is too full ever to forget.  Celestino, my brother, thou art indeed happy.  Dost thou know it?”

“Yes, Eugenio, I feel even too happy.”

“God bless thee, Celestino!  I love thee more than ever;” and, stealing his brother’s hand from mine, he gently kissed it, whilst Celestino smiled on us with a heavenly smile.

It was arranged that I should accompany my father to the counting-house of Eugenio Noele and strive to obtain some redress for the widow and orphans, for I had always been a favorite with him, and my mother imagined that my influence would have more power than her own.  But the only result of this interview was that Eugenio promised, for my sake, to furnish his sister and her family with sufficient funds to enable them to return to their own country:  he also told my father that he should send one of his clerks to accompany them and see that they did go there.

On our way home we called on Dr. Newcastle, our old friend and physician, and after describing the circumstances of the Mortera family, asked him to call and see Celestino in the evening.  The doctor was a fine-looking man, with a profusion of silvery white hair and beard, a deep thinker, blunt and sincere of speech, and full of dry wit that made every one laugh but himself.  His footman (a colored man) was once overheard to say, “Berry strange man, my massa! berry sing’lar man!  I say to him, ’I can’t walk fast in dese yere boots, sar—­dey’s too short.’  ‘Oh,’ he says, ’’tis but the cutting off a piece of your toes, Caesar, and de boots will fit well enuff.’  Him berry sing’lar man.  One day I hear, through de open window of a lady’s house, him say to her, ‘For what did you send after me, madam?’ and she say, ’I feel a leetle ‘stericky again dis morning, doctor:  what can you pescribe for me?’ ‘Pescribe!’ says my massa with a sort of short laugh:  ’why, dat you go to de top of de house wid a brush and dustpan and sweep de stairs all de way down, and make all de beds, and leave off drinking strong coffee;’ and a berry fashionable lady too, as dey tell me after.  When de doctor get into him carriage he talk to himself, and give him short laugh.”