"Come, wake up, countryman; let it not be said that two Provençals let Christmas go by without sprinkling it with a draught of wine--" And Salvette raises him on his pillows with a mother's tenderness. He fills the glasses, cuts the bread. They drink and speak of Provence. Bernadou seems to be cheered by the reminiscences and the white wine. With that childishness which invalids seem to find again in the depths of their weakness he begs for a Provençal carol. His comrade is only too happy. "What shall it be,--'The Host' or 'The Three Kings' or 'Saint Joseph told me'?" "No; I prefer 'The Shepherds.' That is the one we used to sing at home." "Very well, then. Here goes, 'The Shepherds.'" And in a low voice, with his head under the bed-curtains, Salvette begins to sing. At the last verse, when the shepherds have laid down their offering of fresh eggs and cheeses, and Saint Joseph speeds them with kind words,-- "Shepherds, Take your leave,"-- poor Bernadou slips back and falls heavily on his pillow. His comrade, who believes that he has gone to sleep again, shakes him by the arm and calls him; but the wounded man remains motionless, and the twig of holly lying beside him looks like the green palm that is laid on the couch of the dead. Salvette has understood; he is slightly tipsy with the celebration and the shock of his sorrow; and with a voice full of tears he sings out, filling the silent dormitory with the joyous refrain of Provence,-- "Shepherds, Take your leave." MAESE PÉREZ, THE ORGANIST. From the Spanish of GUSTAVO ADOLFO BÉCQUER. I. Do you see the one with the scarlet cloak and the white plume in his hat,--the one whose jerkin seems to glitter with all the gold of the Indian galleys? He is stepping from his litter; he gives his hand to that lady, see her! She is coming this way now, preceded by four pages bearing torches. Well, that is the Marquis of Moscoso, the lover of the widowed Countess of Villapiñeda. They say that before he thought of paying his addresses to her he had sought the hand of an opulent gentleman's daughter. But the lady's father, whom people say is something of a miser--but hush! speaking of the Devil. Do you see that man coming through the arch of San Felipe, on foot, muffled in a dark cloak, and accompanied by a single servant carrying a lantern? Now he is in front of the street shrine. "As he unmuffled to bow before the image, did you notice the decoration that shone on his breast? But for that noble insignia any one would mistake him for a shopkeeper of the street of the Culebras. Well, that is the father in question. See how the people make way for him and greet him as he goes by!