t of the matter is that he has quarreled with
his niece and lives alone, entirely alone, in a miserable cottage in the
suburb of Baidejos. They say now that he will resign his chair in the
choir of the cathedral and go to Rome. Ah! Orbajosa will lose much in
losing her great Latinist. I imagine that many a year will pass before
we shall see such another. Our glorious Spain is falling into decay,
declining, dying."

"ORBAJOSA, December 23.

"The young man who will present to you a letter of introduction from
me is the nephew of our dear Penitentiary, a lawyer with some literary
ability. Carefully educated by his uncle, he has very sensible ideas.
How regrettable it would be if he should become corrupted in that sink
of philosophy and incredulity! He is upright, industrious, and a good
Catholic, for which reasons I believe that in an office like yours he
will rise to distinction in his profession. Perhaps his ambition may
lead him (for he has ambition, too) into the political arena, and
I think he would not be a bad acquisition to the cause of order and
tradition, now that the majority of our young men have become perverted
and have joined the ranks of the turbulent and the vicious. He is
accompanied by his mother, a commonplace woman without any social
polish, but who has an excellent heart, and who is truly pious.
Maternal affection takes in her the somewhat extravagant form of worldly
ambition, and she declares that her son will one day be Minister. It is
quite possible that he may.

"Perfecta desires to be remembered to you. I don't know precisely what
is the matter with her; but the fact is, she gives us great uneasiness.
She has lost her appetite to an alarming degree, and, unless I am
greatly mistaken in my opinion of her case, she shows the first symptoms
of jaundice. The house is very sad without Rosarito, who brightened it
with her smiles and her angelic goodness. A black cloud seems to rest
now over us all. Poor Perfecta speaks frequently of this cloud, which
is growing blacker and blacker, while she becomes every day more yellow.
The poor mother finds consolation for her grief in religion and in
devotional exercises, which each day she practises with a more exemplary
and edifying piety. She passes almost the whole of the day in church,
and she spends her large income in novenas and in splendid religious
ceremonies. Thanks to her, religious worship has recovered in Orbajosa
its former splendor. This is s