now over us all. Poor Perfecta speaks frequently of this cloud, which
is growing blacker and blacker, while she becomes every day more yellow.
The poor mother finds consolation for her grief in religion and in
devotional exercises, which each day she practises with a more exemplary
and edifying piety. She passes almost the whole of the day in church,
and she spends her large income in novenas and in splendid religious
ceremonies. Thanks to her, religious worship has recovered in Orbajosa
its former splendor. This is some consolation in the midst of the decay
and dissolution of our nationality.

"To-morrow I will send the proofs. I will add a few pages more, for I
have discovered another illustrious Orbajosan--Bernardo Amador de Sota,
who was footman to the Duke of Osuna, whom he served during the period
of the vice-royalty of Naples; and there is even good reason to believe
that he had no complicity whatever in the conspiracy against Venice."



Our story is ended. This is all we have to say for the present
concerning persons who seem, but are not good.