He received her with more kindness than she had anticipated. His eyes
glittered in their deep sockets when she related her extremity and the
priest's proposal, and his small shrunken body quivered with excitement
as he answered:

"Saints and angels! Fray Ignatius is right about Santa Anna. We shall
see that he will make caps for his soldiers out of the skins of these
infidel ingrates. But as for going into the convent, I know not. A
miserable marriage you made for yourself, Maria. Pardon, if I say so
much! I let the word slip always. I was never one to bite my tongue. I
am all old man--very well, come here, you and your daughters, till the
days of blood are over. There is room in the house, and a few comforts
in it also. I have some power with Santa Anna. He is a great man--a
great man! In all his wars, good fortune flies before him."

He kissed her hands as he opened the door, and then went back to the
fire, and bent, muttering, over it: "Giver of good! a true Yturbide; a
gentle woman; she is like my sister Mercedes--very like her. These poor
women who trust me, as I am a sinner before God, I am unhappy to deceive
them."

Fray Ignatius might have divined his thoughts, for he entered at the
moment, and said as he approached him:

"You have done right. The soul must be saved, if all is lost. This is
not a time for the friends of the Church and of Mexico to waver. The
Church is insulted every day by these foreign heretics--"

"But you are mistaken, father; the Church holds up her head, whatever
happens. Even the vice-regal crown is not lost--the Church has cleft it
into mitres."

Fray Ignatius smiled, but there was a curious and crafty look of inquiry
on his face. "The city is turbulent, Marquis, and there is undoubtedly a
great number of Mexicans opposed to Santa Anna."

"Do you not know Mexicans yet? They would be opposed to God Almighty,
rather than confess they were well governed. Bah! the genius of Mexico
is mutiny. They scarcely want a leader to move their madness. They rebel
on any weak pretence. They bluster when they are courted; they crouch
when they are oppressed. They are fools to all the world but themselves.
I beg the Almighty to consider in my favor, that some over-hasty angel
misplaced my lot. I should have been born in--New York."

The priest knew that he was talking for irritation, but he was too
politic to favor the mood. He stood on the hearth with his hands folded
behind him, and with a d