use. They left it to me out of respect to
the memory of my father. I am grateful to the clergy of the Chapter,
taking into consideration that I am nothing but a sad old 'Wooden
Staff.' Since my misfortune happened I have had an old woman to keep
house, and Don Luis, the Chapel-master, lives with me. You will come
to know him, a young priest of great talent, but quite hidden here:
one of God's souls, whom they think crazy in the Cathedral, but who
lives like an angel."

They entered into the house of the Lunas, which was one of the best in
the Claverias. By the door two rows of flower vases in the shape of
a clock-case fastened to the walls were filled with hanging plants;
inside, in the sitting room, Gabriel found everything the same as
during his father's lifetime. The white walls that with years had
become like ivory, were still decorated with the old engravings of
saints, the chairs of mahogany, bright with constant rubbing, looked
like new, in spite of their curves, which showed them to belong to
a previous century, and their seats almost ready to drop through.
Through a half-open door he could see into the kitchen, where his
brother had gone to give some orders to a timid-looking old woman. In
one corner of the room, half hidden, was a sewing machine. Luna had
seen his niece working at it the last time he came to the Cathedral.
It was the permanent remembrance the "little one" had left behind her
after that catastrophe which had filled her father with such gloomy
sadness. Through a back window of the room Gabriel could see the inner
court, which made this "habitacion" one of the most charming in the
Claverias, the open expanse of sky, and the upper rooms on all four
sides, supported by rows of slender pillars, that made the courtyard
look like a little cloister.

Esteban came back and rejoined his brother.

"You must say what you would like for breakfast. It would soon be
ready; ask, man, ask for what you want, for though I am poor I shall
take little credit to myself unless I can make you pick up a little
and lose that look of a resuscitated corpse."

Gabriel smiled sadly.

"It is useless your troubling; my stomach is quite gone; a little milk
is enough for it, and I am thankful if it retains it."

Esteban ordered the old woman to go into the town in search of the
milk, and he had hardly seated himself by his brother's side when the
door giving into the cloister opened, and the head of a young man
appeared