"What would you have, my dear Dona Baltasara?" one was saying. "That's the
way I am. Every crazy person with his whim. The barefooted Capuchins might
assure me that it was so, and I would not believe it. That man never
played what we have heard. Why, I have heard him a thousand times in San
Bartolome, his parish church; the priest had to send him away he was so
poor a player. You felt like plugging your ears with cotton. Why, all you
need is to look at his face, and that is the mirror of the soul, they say.
I remember, as if I was seeing him now, poor man--I remember Maese Perez's
face, nights like this, when he came down from the organ-loft, after
having entranced the audience with his splendors. What a gracious smile!
What a happy glow on his face! Old as he was, he seemed like an angel. But
this creature came plunging down as if a dog were barking at him on the
landing, and all the color of a dead man, while his--come, dear Dona
Baltasara, believe me, and believe what I say: there is some great mystery
about this."

Thus conversing, the two women turned the corner of the alley, and
disappeared. There is no need of saying who one of them was.

IV.

Another year had gone by. The abbess of the Convent of Santa Ines and
Maese Perez's daughter were talking in a low voice, half hidden in the
shadows of the church choir. The penetrating voice of the bell was
summoning the faithful. A very few people were passing through the
portico, silent and deserted, this year, and after taking holy water at
the door, were choosing seats in a corner of the nave, where a handful of
residents of the neighborhood were quietly waiting for the Christmas Eve
mass to begin.