between two distinct persons, one of them being the confessor, and the
other the director.

{81} Agonizante was the name of a religious community. The principal
duty of its members was that of administering to the wants and last
religious consolations of the faithful at the hour of death.

{98} There are numerous other anecdotes of her Majesty, which tend to
show she is possessed of some of the best qualities which can adorn the
mind of a queen, and tend to make her popular. Some of these will appear
in the following pages. We shall at present but give one. Passing one
day, when quite a child, along the Prado in Madrid, the eyes of a poor
little girl, without shoes or stockings, were directed to the royal
carriage and caught those of her Majesty. Perceiving the queen's eyes
were fixed on her, the little urchin dropt a courtesy, and held out her
hand in the attitude of supplication. Her Majesty halted, beckoned the
child forward, saw her naked feet, and having no money, in a moment took
off her own shoes and threw them out of the carriage-window to the girl,
desiring her to try them on, which she did, made another genuflection,
and walked off with them, to the great delight of her royal benefactor.

{107} An anecdote referred to by Gibbon, in the part of his history
relative to the sect of the _iconoclast_, confirms all that is advanced
in the text on the powerful influence of worship to images, as it regards
the character of devotion. When the soldiers of Leo broke in pieces the
image of a saint before whom daily prayers were wont to be offered up, a
pious individual gave vent to this bitter lamentation, "Now I can no
longer address my prayers to heaven; now I have no one to hear them!"

{110} Santa Rita is called by Spaniards "The advocate of
impossibilities,"--(_La abogada de los imposibles_.)

Thus, it is not uncommon for a young lady to say to a suitor whom she
refuses, and who imploringly asks her what he shall do to gain her
favour, "Go and invoke Santa Rita."

{113} Spaniards have not waited for Pius IX. to come and acknowledge the
immaculate conception as a dogma of the faith. This belief has existed
in Spain from time immemorial. Murillo has immortalised it in his
master-works, and Charles III. declared her to be the patroness of Spain,
commanding her image to be placed in the badges of the order which he
founded under the title of "The Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles
III."

{115}