ed Lord. Very still are the Sisters, but when it
comes to singing, I can assure you the angels might listen!"

"There is a seguidilla I hear everywhere," said the doctor; "and I never
hear it without feeling the better for listening. It begins--'So noble a
Lord.'"

"That, indeed!" cried Luis. "Who knows it not? It is the seguidilla
to our blessed Lord, written by the daughter of Lope de Vega--the holy
Marcela Carpio. You know it, Senora?"

"As I know my Credo, Luis."

"And you, Isabel?"

"Since I was a little one, as high as my father's knee. Rachela taught
it to me."

"And you, Lopez."

"That is sure, Luis."

"And I, too!" said Antonia, smiling. "Here is your mandolin. Strike the
chords, and we will all sing with you. My father will remember also."
And the doctor smiled an assent, as the young man resigned Isabel's hand
with a kiss, and swept the strings in that sweetness and power which
flows invisibly, but none the less surely, from the heart to the
instrument.

"It is to my blessed Lord and Redeemer, I sing," he said, bowing his
head. Then he stood up and looked at his companions, and struck the
key-note, when every one joined their voices with his in the wonderful
little hymn:

So noble a Lord
None serves in vain;
For the pay of my love
Is my love's sweet pain.

In the place of caresses
Thou givest me woes;
I kiss Thy hands,
When I feel their blows.

For in Thy chastening,
Is joy and peace;
O Master and Lord!
Let thy blows not cease.

I die with longing
Thy face to see
And sweet is the anguish
Of death to me.

For, because Thou lovest me,
Lover of mine!
Death can but make me
Utterly Thine!

The doctor was the first to speak after the sweet triumph of the notes
had died away. "Many a soul I have seen pass whispering those verses,"
he said; "men and women, and little children."

"The good Marcela in heaven has that for her joy," answered Luis.

Lopez rose while the holy influence still lingered. He kissed the hands
of every one, and held the doctor's in his own until they reached the
threshold. A more than usual farewell took place there, though there
were only a few whispered words.

"Farewell, Lopez! I can trust you?"

"Unto death."

"If we never meet again?"

"Still it will be FAREWELL. Thou art i