s, instead of drawing
its nourishment from conscience and from truth revealed in principles as
simple as they are beautiful, seeks its sap in narrow formulas dictated
solely by ecclesiastical interests. In order that religious fanaticism
should be inoffensive, the heart in which it exists must be very pure.
It is true that even in that case it is unproductive of good. But the
hearts that have been born without the seraphic purity which establishes
a premature Limbo on the earth, are careful not to become greatly
inflamed with what they see in retables, in choirs, in locutories and
sacristies, unless they have first erected in their own consciences an
altar, a pulpit, and a confessional.

Dona Perfecta left her writing from time to time, to go into the
adjoining room where her daughter was. Rosarito had been ordered to
sleep, but, already precipitated down the precipice of disobedience, she
was awake.

"Why don't you sleep?" her mother asked her. "I don't intend to go to
bed to-night. You know already that Caballuco has taken away with him
the men we had here. Something might happen, and I will keep watch. If I
did not watch what would become of us both?"

"What time is it?" asked the girl.

"It will soon be midnight. Perhaps you are not afraid, but I am."

Rosarito was trembling, and every thing about her denoted the keenest
anxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicatingly, and then turned
them on her mother with a look of the utmost terror.

"Why, what is the matter with you?"

"Did you not say it was midnight?"

"Yes."

"Then----But is it already midnight?"

Rosario made an effort to speak, then shook her head, on which the
weight of a world was pressing.

"Something is the matter with you; you have something on your mind,"
said her mother, fixing on her daughter her penetrating eyes.

"Yes--I wanted to tell you," stammered the girl, "I wanted to
say----Nothing, nothing, I will go to sleep."

"Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like an open book,"
exclaimed Dona Perfecta with severity. "You are agitated. I have told
you already that I am willing to pardon you if you will repent; if you
are a good and sensible girl."

"Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying!"

Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.

"What are these tears about?" said her mother, embracing her. "If they
are tears of repentance, blessed be they."

"I don't repent, I can't repent!"