ired
of it, and is going home to his own village. It appears that since his
dog died he has taken a dislike to the duties. The other watchman is
very poorly and wants a companion. Will you undertake it? If it were
winter I should not say anything about it, as you cough too much to
spend the night down there; but in summer the Cathedral is the coolest
place in Toledo. What lovely nights! And by the time bad weather comes
on we will have found you some better place. You are trustworthy,
though your head is rather light; but you come of an honoured and
well-known family, which is what is wanted. Do you accept?"

Luna accepted, declaring his intention to Esteban, when the latter
objected on account of his weak health. He would only undertake the
watchman's duties during the summer; besides, two pesetas a day were
even more than Wooden Staff earned; the income of the family would be
doubled, and it would be a pity to lose such a good opportunity.

That evening Sagrario spoke to her uncle praising the energy which
prompted him to undertake any sort of work so as not to be a charge on
the family.

They were in the cloister leaning on the balustrade; below was the
dark garden with its waving branches, above a summer sky veiled by the
heat haze which dulled the brightness of the stars. They were alone
in the four-sided gallery. The lighted windows of the Chapel-master's
little room threw a square of red on the opposite roofs. They could
hear the harmonium playing slowly and sadly, and when it stopped the
shadow of the musician passed and repassed over the square of light
with his nervous gestures, which, enlarged by the reflection, appeared
the most grotesque contortions.

The nocturnal calm and darkness surrounded Gabriel and Sagrario with a
gentle caress; that mysterious freshness was falling from above which
seems to revive drooping spirits and magnify old remembrances. The
Church seemed to them as an immense sleeping beast, in whose lap they
had found peace and protection.

Gabriel spoke of his past, in order to convince the young woman that
his work in the Cathedral would not be very arduous. He had suffered
much; there was no bitterness that he had not tasted; he had endured
hunger, terrible hunger, in his peregrinations through the world.
He did not know which were the most painful, his martyrdom in the
dungeons of the gloomy castle, or his days of despair in the streets
of crowded cities, seeing food and gold throu