atter of distress among some
of his parishioners. This was a family--but you are ignorant of Spain,
and even the names of our grandees are hardly known to you; suffice it,
then, that they were once great people, and are now fallen to the brink
of destitution. Nothing now belongs to them but the residencia, and
certain leagues of desert mountain, in the greater part of which not even
a goat could support life. But the house is a fine old place, and stands
at a great height among the hills, and most salubriously; and I had no
sooner heard my friend's tale, than I remembered you. I told him I had a
wounded officer, wounded in the good cause, who was now able to make a
change; and I proposed that his friends should take you for a lodger.
Instantly the Padre's face grew dark, as I had maliciously foreseen it
would. It was out of the question, he said. Then let them starve, said
I, for I have no sympathy with tatterdemalion pride. There-upon we
separated, not very content with one another; but yesterday, to my
wonder, the Padre returned and made a submission: the difficulty, he
said, he had found upon enquiry to be less than he had feared; or, in
other words, these proud people had put their pride in their pocket. I
closed with the offer; and, subject to your approval, I have taken rooms
for you in the residencia. The air of these mountains will renew your
blood; and the quiet in which you will there live is worth all the
medicines in the world.'

'Doctor,' said I, 'you have been throughout my good angel, and your
advice is a command. But tell me, if you please, something of the family
with which I am to reside.'

'I am coming to that,' replied my friend; 'and, indeed, there is a
difficulty in the way. These beggars are, as I have said, of very high
descent and swollen with the most baseless vanity; they have lived for
some generations in a growing isolation, drawing away, on either hand,
from the rich who had now become too high for them, and from the poor,
whom they still regarded as too low; and even to-day, when poverty forces
them to unfasten their door to a guest, they cannot do so without a most
ungracious stipulation. You are to remain, they say, a stranger; they
will give you attendance, but they refuse from the first the idea of the
smallest intimacy.'

I will not deny that I was piqued, and perhaps the feeling strengthened
my desire to go, for I was confident that I could break down that barrier
if I