saic,
compared with the life of sacrifice, with the spiritual existence to
which he believed himself called in the first years of his youth. But
Pepita hastens, solicitous, to dispel his melancholy on such occasions;
and then Luis comprehends and acknowledges that it is possible for man
to serve God in every state and condition, and succeeds in reconciling
the lively faith and the love of God that fill his soul, with this
legitimate love of the earthly and perishable. But in the earthly and
perishable he beholds the divine principle, as it were, without which,
neither in the stars that stud the heavens, nor in the flowers and
fruits that beautify the fields, nor in the eyes of Pepita, nor in the
innocence and beauty of Periquito, would he behold anything lovely. The
greater world, all this magnificent fabric of the universe, he declares,
would without its all-seeing God seem to him sublime indeed, but without
order, or beauty, or purpose. And as for the lesser world, as we are
accustomed to call man, neither would he love it were it not for God;
and this, not because God commands him to love it, but because the
dignity of man, and his title to be loved, have their foundation in God
himself, who not only made the soul of man in his own likeness, but
ennobled also his body, making it the living temple of the Spirit,
holding communion with it by means of the sacrament, and exalting it to
the extreme of uniting with it his uncreate Word. In these and other
arguments, which I am unable to set forth here, Luis finds consolation.
He reconciles himself to having relinquished his purpose of leading a
life devoted to pious meditations, ecstatic contemplation, and apostolic
works, and ceases to feel the sort of generous envy with which the
father vicar inspired him on the day of his death; but both he and
Pepita continue to give thanks, with great Christian devoutness, for
the benefits they enjoy, comprehending that not to their own merit do
they owe these benefits, but only to the goodness of God.

And so my children have in their house a couple of apartments resembling
beautiful little Catholic chapels or oratories: but I must confess that
these chapels have, too, their trace of paganism--an
amorous-pastoral-poetic and Arcadian air, which is to be seen only
beyond city walls.

The orchard of Pepita is no longer an orchard, but a most enchanting
garden, with its _araucarias_, its Indian fig-trees, that grow here in
the open air