’Apply to one of the nobles of the court, who must assign you a pension of four thousand ducats.’

‘I asked you for advice, senor, and not for jest.’

’And then, your church must be rebuilt.  We will call it the Church of the Cup of Cold Water.  Here is the plan.  See, this is to be the vicarage; and here, divided by this paling’——­

’What does this mean?  What would you say?  And, surely, I remember that voice, that face’——­

’I am Don Jose della Ribeira; and twelve years ago, I was the brigand Jose.  I escaped from prison; and—­for the revolution made great changes—­am now powerful.  My children’——­

He clasped them in his arms.  And when at length he had embraced them a hundred times, with tears, and smiles, and broken sentences; and when all had in some degree recovered their composure, he took the hand of the priest and said:  ’Well, father, will you not accept the Church of the Cup of Cold Water?’ The old man, deeply affected, turned to Margarita, and repeated: 

’Whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.’

‘Amen!’ replied the aged woman, her voice tremulous from emotion.

A short time afterwards, Don Jose della Ribeira and his two sons were present at the consecration of the church of San-Pietro-del-Vaso-di-Aqua-Fria, one of the prettiest churches in the neighbourhood of Sevilla.

MUSIC-GRINDERS OF THE METROPOLIS.

Perhaps the pleasantest of all the out-door accessories of a London life are the strains of fugitive music which one hears in the quiet by-streets or suburban highways—­strains born of the skill of some of our wandering artists, who, with flute, violin, harp, or brazen tube of various shape and designation, make the brick-walls of the busy city responsive with the echoes of harmony.  Many a time and oft have we lingered entranced by the witchery of some street Orpheus, forgetful, not merely of all the troubles of existence, but of existence itself, until the strain had ceased, and silence aroused us to the matter-of-fact world of business.  One blind fiddler, we know him well, with face upturned towards the sky, has stood a public benefactor any day these twenty years, and we know not how much longer, to receive the substantial homage of the music-loving million.  But that he is scarcely old enough, he might have been the identical Oxford-Street Orpheus of Wordsworth:—­

    ’His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
     He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
     He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim—­
     Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?’