e of his strength, trampling the
nations under foot, as the treader tramples the grapes in the
wine-press, their garments raised, and covered with blood to the thighs.
Ah, no; my God! I am about to become thy minister. Thou art a God of
peace, and my first duty should be meekness. Thou makest the sun to
shine on the just and the unjust, and pourest down upon all alike the
fertilizing rain of thy inexhaustible goodness. Thou art our Father who
dwellest in the heavens, and we should be perfect, even as thou art
perfect, pardoning those who have offended us, and asking thee to pardon
them, because they know not what they do. I should recall to mind the
beatitudes of the Scripture: Blessed are ye when they revile you and
persecute you, and say all manner of evil things against you. The
minister of God, or he who is about to become his minister, must be
humble, peaceable, meek of heart; not like the oak that lifts itself up
proudly, until the thunderbolt strike it, but like the fragrant herbs of
the woods, and the modest flowers of the fields, that give sweeter and
more grateful perfume after the rustic has trodden them under foot."

In these and other meditations of a like nature the hours passed until
three o'clock, when Don Pedro, who had just returned from the country,
entered his son's room to call him to dinner. The gay joviality of his
father, his jest, his affectionate attentions daring the meal, were all
of no avail to draw Don Luis from his melancholy, or to give him an
appetite; he ate little, and scarcely spoke while they were at table.

Although much troubled by the silent melancholy of his son, whose
health, though indeed robust, was yet not beyond risk of being affected,
Don Pedro, who rose with the dawn and had a busy time of it during the
day, when he had finished his after-dinner cigar and taken his cup of
coffee and his glass of anisette, felt fatigued, and went, according to
his custom, to take his two or three hours of _siesta_.

Don Luis had taken good care not to draw the attention of his father to
the offense done him by the Count of Genazahar. His father, who, for his
part, had no intention of fitting himself to celebrate mass, and who,
besides, was not of a very meek disposition, would have rushed
instantly, had he done so, to take the vengeance Don Luis had failed to
take.

When his father had retired, Don Luis also left the dining-room, that he
might, in the seclusion of his own apartment, give