-control; and
besides, Tom, Dick, and Harry are right, the borrowed complexion _is_
the better one; perhaps I may be able, in time, to really acquire one
like it."

To find himself listening, therefore, without his mask, listening for
the simple entertainment of it, was always an agreeable variety to this
gentleman, who kept at least his outward attention in such strict
control; and the first time he heard Mrs. Betty Carew hold forth, he had
a taste of it.

"Yes, that was Mistress Thorne and Garda, I reckon; on second thoughts,
I am sure of it; for they always come up from East Angels on Sunday
mornings to service, with old Pablo to row, as Mistress Thorne _has_
succeeded in getting as far as the Episcopal church, though Our Lady of
the Angels _was_ too much for her, which was quite as well, however,
because, of course, all the Thornes, being English, were Church people
of course in the old country, though poor Eddie, having been twice
diluted, as one may say, owing to his mother and grandmother having been
Spanish and Roman Catholic, was not _quite_ so strong in the real
Episcopal doctrines as he might have been, which was a pity, of course,
but could hardly, under the circumstances, have been prevented so far as
I can see, for one swallow doesn't make a summer, I reckon, any more
than one parent makes a Protestant, especially when the other's a
Duero--with the Old Madam _roaring_ on the borders, ready to raise Ned
on the slightest provocation, to come down like wolf on the fold, you
know--or was it the Assyrian? Now at East Angels--perhaps you are
wondering at the name? Well, the cathedral, to begin with, is Our Lady
of the Angels, and, in the old days, there were two mission-stations for
the Indians south of here, one on the east coast, one more to the west,
and bearing the same name. These chapels are gone; but as the Duero
house stood near one of them, it took the name, or part of it, and has
been called East Angels ever since. There was no house near the other
chapel--West Angels--and some say the very site is lost, though others
again have declared that the old bell is still there, lying at the foot
of a great cypress--that hunters have seen it. But I haven't much faith
in hunters, have you?--nor in fishermen either, for that matter. Little
Mistress Thorne must know a great deal about fish, I suppose she lived
on cod before she came down here; she belongs to Puritan stock, they
say, and there _were_ good people