gh, turning to the lady, who
still retained much of the beauty for which the young girl was
conspicuous.

"You had not then entered the priesthood; and on entering it, and
putting off the secular habit, I should have thought, my lord, that you
would have put off all thoughts and feelings of the past," answered Dona
Mercia calmly.

"Not so easy a task," replied the Bishop. "A scene like this conjures
up the recollection of days gone by and never to return. You--you, Dona
Mercia, might have saved me from what I now suffer."

"You speak strangely, Don Gonzales," said Dona Mercia. "Why address
such words to me? Our feelings are not always under our own control. I
know that you offered me your hand, and the cause of my rejecting your
offer was that I could not give you what alone would have made my hand
of value. I never deceived you, and as soon as I knew your feelings,
strove to show you what were mine."

"Indeed, you did!" exclaimed the Bishop, in a tone of bitterness. "You
say truly, too, that we cannot always control our feelings. My rival is
no more; and did not the office into which I rashly plunged cut me off
from the domestic life I once hoped to enjoy, what happiness might yet
be mine!"

"Oh, my lord, let me beg you not to utter such remarks," said Dona
Mercia, in a voice of entreaty. "The past cannot be recalled. God
chasteneth whom He loveth. He may have reserved for you more happiness
than any earthly prosperity can give."

A frown passed over the brow of the priest of Rome.

The lady of the mansion, anxious to turn the current of the Bishop's
thoughts, and to put a stop to a conversation which was annoying her--
fearing, indeed, from her knowledge of the man, that it might lead to
some proposal still more painful and disagreeable--called her young
daughter, Leonor de Cisneros, to her. Dona Leonor approached the Bishop
with downcast looks.

"You are wonderfully demure now, my pretty maiden," he remarked in a
bantering tone, his countenance brightening, however, for an instant as
he spoke to her; "but you were gay and frolicking enough just now, when
I entered. How is that?"

"It becomes me to be grave in your presence, my lord," was the answer.

"But you are generally happy and joyous, are you not?" asked the Bishop.

"Yes, especially when I think of the good and loving Master I desire to
serve," answered the young girl, innocently.

"Who is that?" asked the Romish priest, not guessin