Government; there she held long conferences with Don Inocencio. To
become acquainted with the scene of others of her actions whose effects
we have observed, it would be necessary to follow her to the episcopal
palace and to the houses of various of her friends.

We do not know what Dona Perfecta would have been, loving. Hating, she
had the fiery vehemence of an angel of hatred and discord among men.
Such is the effect produced on a character naturally hard, and without
inborn goodness, by religious exaltation, when this, instead of drawing
its nourishment from conscience and from truth revealed in principles as
simple as they are beautiful, seeks its sap in narrow formulas dictated
solely by ecclesiastical interests. In order that religious fanaticism
should be inoffensive, the heart in which it exists must be very pure.
It is true that even in that case it is unproductive of good. But the
hearts that have been born without the seraphic purity which establishes
a premature Limbo on the earth, are careful not to become greatly
inflamed with what they see in retables, in choirs, in locutories and
sacristies, unless they have first erected in their own consciences an
altar, a pulpit, and a confessional.

Dona Perfecta left her writing from time to time, to go into the
adjoining room where her daughter was. Rosarito had been ordered to
sleep, but, already precipitated down the precipice of disobedience, she
was awake.

"Why don't you sleep?" her mother asked her. "I don't intend to go to
bed to-night. You know already that Caballuco has taken away with him
the men we had here. Something might happen, and I will keep watch. If I
did not watch what would become of us both?"