ere if sometimes
the priest is thinking of something else? So there's my confession! And
now, whether Trovatore is come or not, I shall not allow you to leave us
until you have taught all you know of it to Felipe."

The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pages
Padre Ignacio was quick to seize at once upon the music that could be
taken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoon
Felipe and his choir could have rendered "Ah! se l' error t' ingombra"
without slip or falter.

Those were strange rehearsals of Il Trovatore upon this California
shore. For the Padre looked to Gaston to say when they went too fast
or too slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, the
little Erard piano was carried each day out into the mission garden.
There, in the cloisters among the jessamine, the orange blossoms,
the oleanders, in the presence of the round yellow hills and the blue
triangle of sea, the Miserere was slowly learned. The Mexicans and
Indians gathered, swarthy and black-haired, around the tinkling
instrument that Felipe played; and presiding over them were young Gaston
and the pale Padre, walking up and down the paths, beating time or
singing now one part and now another. And so it was that the wild cattle
on the uplands would hear Trovatore hummed by a passing vaquero, while
the same melody was filling the streets of the far-off world.

For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; and
though not a word of restlessness came from him, his host could read San
Francisco and the gold-mines in his countenance. No, the young man could
not have stayed here for twenty years! And the Padre forbore urging his
guest to extend his visit.

"But the world is small," the guest declared at parting. "Some day it
will not be able to spare you any longer. And then we are sure to meet.
But you shall hear from me soon, at any rate."

Again, as upon the first evening, the two exchanged a few courtesies,
more graceful and particular than we, who have not time, and fight no
duels, find worth a man's while at the present day. For duels are gone,
which is a very good thing, and with them a certain careful politeness,
which is a pity; but that is the way in the eternal profit and loss. So
young Gaston rode northward out of the mission, back to the world and
his fortune; and the Padre stood watching the dust after the rider had
passed from sight. Then he went into his room w