But the little Jose kept his eyes to the pavement, and would
make no reply.

Meanwhile, at a splendidly carved table in the library of his palatial
residence, surrounded by every luxury that wealth and ecclesiastical
influence could command, the Archbishop, pious shepherd of a restless
flock, sat with clouded brow and heavy heart. The festive ceremonials
of Easter were at hand, and the Church was again preparing to display
her chief splendors. But on the preceding Easter disturbances had
interrupted the processions of the Virgin; and already rumors had
reached the ears of the Archbishop of further trouble to be incited
during the approaching Holy Week by the growing body of skeptics and
anticlericals. To what extent these liberals had assumed the
proportions of a propaganda, and how active they would now show
themselves, were questions causing the holy man deep concern. Heavy
sighs escaped him as he voiced his fears to his sympathetic secretary
and associate, Rafael de Rincon, the gaunt, ascetic uncle of the
little Jose.

"Alas!" he murmured gloomily. "Since the day that our Isabella yielded
to her heretic ministers and thrust aside the good Sister Patrocinio,
Spain has been in a perilous state. After that unholy act the
dethronement and exile of the Queen were inevitable."

"True, Your Eminence," replied the secretary. "But is there no cause
for hope in the elevation of her son, Alfonso, to the throne?"

"He is but seventeen--and absent from Spain six years. He lacks the
force of his talented mother. And there is no longer a Sister
Patrocinio to command the royal ear."

"Unfortunate, I admit, Your Eminence. She bore the _stigmata_, the
very marks of our Saviour's wounds, imprinted on her flesh, and worked
his miracles. But, in Alfonso--"

"No, no," interrupted the Archbishop impatiently; "he has styled
himself the first Republican in Europe. He will make Catholicism the
state religion; but he will extend religious toleration to all. He is
consumptive in mind as well as in body. And the army--alas! what may
we look for from it when soldiers like this Polo Hernandez refuse to
kneel during the Mass?"

"The man has been arrested, Your Eminence," the secretary offered in
consolation.

"But the court-martial acquitted him!"

"True. Yet he has now been summoned before the supreme court in
Madrid."

The Archbishop's face brightened somewhat. "And the result--what think
you?"

The secretary shrugged his drooping