Santa Ysabel
del Mar, inviolate, feudal, remote.

They were the only persons of quality present; and between themselves
and the gente de razon a space intervened. Behind the Padre's chair
stood an Indian to waft upon him, and another stood behind the chair of
Gaston Villere. Each of these servants wore one single white garment,
and offered the many dishes to the gente fina and refilled their
glasses. At the lower end of the table a general attendant wafted upon
mesclados--the half-breeds. There was meat with spices, and roasted
quail, with various cakes and other preparations of grain; also the
brown fresh olives and grapes, with several sorts of figs and plums,
and preserved fruits, and white and red wine--the white fifty years
old. Beneath the quiet shining of candles, fresh-cut flowers leaned from
vessels of old Mexican and Spanish make.

There at one end of this feast sat the wild, pastoral, gaudy company,
speaking little over their food; and there at the other the pale Padre,
questioning his visitor about Rachel. The mere name of a street would
bring memories crowding to his lips; and when his guest told him of a
new play he was ready with old quotations from the same author. Alfred
de Vigny they spoke of, and Victor Hugo, whom the Padre disliked. Long
after the dulce, or sweet dish, when it was the custom for the vaqueros
and the rest of the retainers to rise and leave the gente fina to
themselves, the host sat on in the empty hail, fondly talking to his
guest of his bygone Paris and fondly learning of the later Paris
that the guest had seen. And thus the two lingered, exchanging their
enthusiasms, while the candles waned, and the long-haired Indians stood
silent behind the chairs.

"But we must go to my piano," the host exclaimed. For at length they had
come to a lusty difference of opinion. The Padre, with ears critically
deaf, and with smiling, unconvinced eyes, was shaking his head, while
young Gaston sang Trovatore at him, and beat upon the table with a fork.

"Come and convert me, then," said Padre Ignacio, and he led the way.
"Donizetti I have always admitted. There, at least, is refinement.
If the world has taken to this Verdi, with his street-band music--But
there, now! Sit down and convert me. Only don't crush my poor little
Erard with Verdi's hoofs. I brought it when I came. It is behind the
times, too. And, oh, my dear boy, our organ is still worse. So old, so
old! To get a proper one I would sacri