to-morrow, I
trust?"

"With your leave," answered Gaston, "I will have such an intention no
longer."

It was with the air and gait of mutual understanding that the two now
walked on together toward the Padre's door. The guest was twenty-five,
the host sixty.

"And have you been in America long?" inquired Gaston.

"Twenty years."

"And at Santa Ysabel how long?"

"Twenty years."

"I should have thought," said Gaston, looking lightly at the desert
and unpeopled mountains, "that now and again you might have wished to
travel."

"Were I your age," murmured Padre Ignacio, "it might be so."

The evening had now ripened to the long after-glow of sunset. The sea
was the purple of grapes, and wine-colored hues flowed among the high
shoulders of the mountains.

"I have seen a sight like this," said Gaston, "between Granada and
Malaga."

"So you know Spain!" said the Padre.

Often he had thought of this resemblance, but never till now met any
one to share his thought. The courtly proprietor of San Fernando and the
other patriarchal rancheros with whom he occasionally exchanged visits
across the wilderness knew hospitality and inherited gentle manners,
sending to Europe for silks and laces to give their daughters; but their
eyes had not looked upon Granada, and their ears had never listened to
William Tell.

"It is quite singular," pursued Gaston, "how one nook in the world will
suddenly remind you of another nook that may be thousands of miles away.
One morning, behind the Quai Voltaire, an old, yellow house with rusty
balconies made me almost homesick for New Orleans."

"The Quai Voltaire!" said the Padre.

"I heard Rachel in Valerie that night," the young man went on. "Did you
know that she could sing, too. She sang several verses by an astonishing
little Jew violin-cellist that is come up over there."

The Padre gazed down at his blithe guest. "To see somebody, somebody,
once again, is very pleasant to a hermit!"

"It cannot be more pleasant than arriving at an oasis," returned Gaston.

They had delayed on the threshold to look at the beauty of the evening,
and now the priest watched his parishioners come and go. "How can one
make companions--" he began; then, checking himself, he said: "Their
souls are as sacred and immortal as mine, and God helps me to help
them. But in this world it is not immortal souls that we choose for
companions; it is kindred tastes, intelligences, and--and so I and my
books ar