"Ah, Senorita! How do you do this beautiful morning?" He looked at her earnestly, and added, "You are too pale, Inez--much too pale. Your midnight vigils do not agree with you; believe me, I speak seriously, you will undermine your health." Her eyes were fixed earnestly on his noble face, beaming with benevolence, and a slight flush tinged her cheek, as she replied, "Dr. Bryant, I am not the devout Catholic you suppose me. The Padre thinks me remiss in many of my duties, and I am going for a short time to San Jose. You need not look at me so strangely, I have no idea of becoming a nun, I assure you." "Inez, one of your faith can never be sure of anything; let me entreat you not to go to the convent. You need recreation, and had much better mount your pony, and canter a couple of miles every morning; it would insure a more healthful state of both body and mind." "I must go, Dr. Bryant." "Well then, good-by, if you must, yet I fear you will not return looking any better." "Adios," and they parted. Inez's eye followed the retreating form till an adjoining corner intervened. Then pressing her hand on her heart, as if to still some exquisite pain, she murmured in saddened tones--"Oh! I would lay down my life for your love, yet it is lavished on one who has no heart to give in return. Oh, that I may one day be able to serve you!" At the moment she perceived Manuel Nevarro crossing the Plaza, and drawing closer the mantilla, she hastened homeward. CHAPTER IX. "A perfect woman, nobly planned; To warn, to counsel, to command, The reason firm, the temperate will, Prudence, foresight, strength, and skill." WORDSWORTH. The beautiful ideal of Wordsworth seemed realized in Mrs. Carlton. She was by nature impetuous, and even irritable; but the careful training of her deeply pious mother early eradicated these seeds of discord and future misery. She reared her "in the way she should go," and taught her to "remember her Creator in the days of her youth." Crushing vanity, which soon rose hydra-headed in her path, she implanted in her daughter's heart a sense of her own unworthiness, and led her to the "fountain of light and strength." Under her judicious care, Ellen's character was molded into perfect beauty. She became a Christian, in the purest sense of the term. Hers were not the gloomy tenets of the anchorite, which, with a sort of Spartan stoicism, severs every tie enjoined by his great Creator, bids adieu to all of joy that earth can give, and becomes a devotee at the shrine of some canonized son of earth, as full of imperfections as himself. Neither did she hold the lighter and equally dangerous creed of the latitudinarian. Her views were of a happy medium; liberal, yet perfectly orthodox.