proceeds from his pleasant manners, which forbid our considering
him as a Stranger. I know not why, but I feel more at my ease
while conversing with him than I usually do with people who are
unknown to me. I feared not to repeat to him all my childish
thoughts; and somehow I felt confident that He would hear my
folly with indulgence. Oh! I was not deceived in him! He
listened to me with such an air of kindness and attention! He
answered me with such gentleness, such condescension! He did not
call me an Infant, and treat me with contempt, as our cross old
Confessor at the Castle used to do. I verily believe that if I
had lived in Murcia a thousand years, I never should have liked
that fat old Father Dominic!'

'I confess that Father Dominic had not the most pleasing manners
in the world; But He was honest, friendly, and well-meaning.'

'Ah! my dear Mother, those qualities are so common!'

'God grant, my Child, that Experience may not teach you to think
them rare and precious: I have found them but too much so! But
tell me, Antonia; Why is it impossible for me to have seen the
Abbot before?'

'Because since the moment when He entered the Abbey, He has never
been on the outside of its walls. He told me just now, that from
his ignorance of the Streets, He had some difficulty to find the
Strada di San Iago, though so near the Abbey.'

'All this is possible, and still I may have seen him BEFORE He
entered the Abbey: In order to come out, it was rather necessary