"I did not know I was coming until the day before yesterday. It seems that some new grants of the old ex-Governor's have been discovered, and that a patent is to be applied for. My partners being busy, I was deputed to come here and look up the matter. To tell the truth, I was glad of an excuse to see our fair client, or, at least, be disappointed, as my partners have been, in obtaining a glimpse of the mysterious Donna Dolores." "Ah, my dear Don Arturo," said the Padre, with a slightly deprecatory movement of his brown hands, "I fear you will be no more fortunate than others. It is a penitential week with the poor child, and at such times she refuses to see any one, even on business. Believe me, my dear boy, you, like the others--more than the others--permit your imagination to run away with your judgment. Donna Dolores' concealment of her face is not to heighten or tempt the masculine curiosity, but alas!--poor child--is only to hide the heathenish tattooings that deface her cheek. You know she is a half-breed. Believe me, you are all wrong. It is foolish, perhaps--vanity--who knows? but she is a _woman_--what would you?" continued the sagacious Padre, emphasising the substantive with a slight shrug worthy of his patron saint. "But they say, for all that, she is very beautiful," continued Arthur, with that mischievousness which was his habitual method of entertaining the earnestness of others, and which he could not entirely forego, even with the Padre. "So! so! Don Arturo--it is idle gossip!" said Father Felipe, impatiently,--"a brown Indian girl with a cheek as tawny as the summer fields." Arthur made a grimace that might have been either of assent or deprecation. "Well, I suppose this means that I am to look over the papers with you alone. _Bueno!_ Have them out, and let us get over this business as soon as possible." "_Poco tiempo_," said Father Felipe, with a smile. Then more gravely, "But what is this? You do not seem to have that interest in your profession that one might expect of the rising young advocate--the junior partner of the great firm you represent. Your heart is not in your work--eh?" Arthur laughed. "Why not? It is as good as any." "But to right the oppressed? To do justice to the unjustly accused, eh? To redress wrongs--ah, my son! _that_ is noble. That, Don Arturo--it is _that_ has made you and your colleagues dear to me--dear to those who have been the helpless victims of your courts--your _corregidores_." "Yes, yes," interrupted Arthur, hastily, shedding the Father's praise with an habitual deft ease that was not so much the result of modesty as a certain conscious pride that resented any imperfect tribute. "Yes, I suppose it pays as well, if not better, in the long run. 'Honesty is the best policy,' as our earliest philosophers say." "Pardon?" queried the Padre.