e natural and untaught
elegance of his manners, his eyes full of fire and intelligence, his
whole self, in a word, which seems to me altogether amiable and
desirable. Your eulogies of him have indeed pleased my vanity, but they
did not awaken my inclinations. Your praises charmed me because they
coincided with my own opinion, and were like the flattering
echo--deadened, indeed, and faint--of my thoughts. The most eloquent
encomium you have pronounced, in my hearing, on Don Luis, was far from
being equal to the encomiums that I, at each moment, at each instant,
silently pronounced upon him in my own soul."

"Don't excite yourself, child," interrupted the reverend vicar.

Pepita continued, with still greater exaltation:

"But what a difference between your encomiums and my thoughts! For you
Don Luis was the exemplary model of the priest, the missionary, the
apostle, now preaching the gospel in distant lands, now endeavoring in
Spain to elevate Christianity, so degraded in our day through the
impiety of some, and the want of virtue, of charity, and of knowledge,
of others. I, on the contrary, pictured him to myself handsome, loving,
forgetting God for me, consecrating his life to me, giving me his soul,
becoming my stay, my support, my sweet companion. I longed to commit a
sacrilegious theft: I dreamed of stealing him from God and from his
temple, like the thief who, proclaiming himself the enemy of Heaven,
robs the sacred monstrance of its most precious jewel. To commit this
theft I have put off the mourning garments of the widow and orphan, and
have decked myself with profane adornments; I have abandoned my
seclusion, and I have sought and gathered around me society. I have
tried to make myself look beautiful; I have cared for every part of this
miserable body--that must one day be lowered into the grave, and be
converted into dust--with an unholy devotion; and, finally, I have
looked at Don Luis with provoking glances, and on shaking hands with him
I have sought to transmit from my veins to his, the inextinguishable
fire that is consuming me."

"Alas! my child, what grief it gives me to hear this! Who could have
imagined it?" said the vicar.

"But there is still more," resumed Pepita; "I succeeded in making Don
Luis love me. He declared it to me with his eyes. Yes, his love is as
profound, as ardent as mine. His virtues, his aspirations toward
heavenly things, his manly energy, have all urged him to conquer this
i