little bank." Ibarra smiled and answered with an equivocal shake
of his head.

"Who's that?" asked Maria Clara of Victoria, indicating with a rapid
glance a youth who was following them.

"He's--he's a cousin of mine," she answered with some agitation.

"And the other?"

"He's no cousin of mine," put in Sinang merrily. "He's my uncle's son."

They passed in front of the parish rectory, which was not one of the
least animated buildings. Sinang was unable to repress an exclamation
of surprise on seeing the lamps burning, those lamps of antique
pattern which Padre Salvi had never allowed to be lighted, in order
not to waste kerosene. Loud talk and resounding bursts of laughter
might be heard as the friars moved slowly about, nodding their heads
in unison with the big cigars that adorned their lips. The laymen
with them, who from their European garments appeared to be officials
and employees of the province, were endeavoring to imitate whatever
the good priests did. Maria Clara made out the rotund figure of Padre
Damaso at the side of the trim silhouette of Padre Sibyla. Motionless
in his place stood the silent and mysterious Fray Salvi.

"He's sad," observed Sinang, "for he's thinking about how much so
many visitors are going to cost. But you'll see how he'll not pay
it himself, but the sacristans will. His visitors always eat at
other places."

"Sinang!" scolded Victoria.

"I haven't been able to endure him since he tore up the _Wheel of
Fortune_. I don't go to confession to him any more."

Of all the houses one only was to be noticed without lights and with
all the windows closed--that of the alferez. Maria Clara expressed
surprise at this.

"The witch! The Muse of the Civil Guard, as the old man says,"
exclaimed the irrepressible Sinang. "What has she to do with our
merrymakings? I imagine she's raging! But just let the cholera come
and you'd see her give a banquet."

"But, Sinang!" again her cousin scolded.

"I never was able to endure her and especially since she disturbed our
picnic with her civil-guards. If I were the Archbishop I'd marry Her
to Padre Salvi--then think what children! Look how she tried to arrest
the poor pilot, who threw himself into the water simply to please--"

She was not allowed to finish, for in the corner of the plaza
where a blind man was singing to the accompaniment of a guitar,
a curious spectacle was presented. It was a man miserably dressed,
wearing a broad salakot of p