s and
heathen incantation."

"Pray Heaven THAT were all he learned of him," said the priest hastily,
"for I have great fear that this sailor was little better than an
atheist and an emissary from Satan. But where are these newspapers and
the fantasies of publicita that fill his mind? I would see them, my
daughter."

"You shall, your Reverence, and more too," she replied eagerly, leading
the way along the passage to a grated door which opened upon a small
cell-like apartment, whose scant light and less air came through the
deeply embayed windows in the outer wall. "Here is his estudio."

In spite of this open invitation, the padre entered with that air of
furtive and minute inspection common to his order. His glance fell
upon a rude surveyor's plan of the adjacent embryo town of Jonesville
hanging on the wall, which he contemplated with a cold disfavor that
even included the highly colored vignette of the projected Jonesville
Hotel in the left-hand corner. He then passed to a supervisor's notice
hanging near it, which he examined with a suspicion heightened by that
uneasiness common to mere worldly humanity when opposed to an unknown
and unfamiliar language. But an exclamation broke from his lips when
he confronted an election placard immediately below it. It was printed
in Spanish and English, and Father Felipe had no difficulty in reading
the announcement that "Don Jose Sepulvida would preside at a meeting of
the Board of Education in Jonesville as one of the trustees."

"This is madness," said the padre.

Observing that Dona Maria was at the moment preoccupied in examining
the pictorial pages of an illustrated American weekly which had
hitherto escaped his eyes, he took it gently from her hand.

"Pardon, your Reverence," she said with slightly acidulous deprecation,
"but thanks to the Blessed Virgin and your Reverence's teaching, the
text is but gibberish to me and I did but glance at the pictures."

"Much evil may come in with the eye," said the priest sententiously,
"as I will presently show thee. We have here," he continued, pointing
to an illustration of certain college athletic sports, "a number of
youthful cavaliers posturing and capering in a partly nude condition
before a number of shameless women, who emulate the saturnalia of
heathen Rome by waving their handkerchiefs. We have here a companion
picture," he said, indicating an illustration of gymnastic exercises by
the students of a female ac