anxious mother--“but do you not think my daughter’s sleep is supernatural?”--“Follow me to mine apartment, daughter,” answered the priest, exchanging his cowl for a night-cap, which one of the numerous household obsequiously presented him, “and you will soon see that sleep is a natural effect of a natural cause. Your daughter has doubtless passed a very fatiguing night, and so have you, and so have I, though perhaps from very different causes; but all those causes dispose us to a profound repose.--I have no doubt of mine--fetch up the wine and sausages--I am very weary--Oh I am weak and worn with fasts and watching, and the labours of exhortation. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, and my jaws cling together,--perhaps a draught or two might dissolve their parching adhesion. But I do so hate wine----why the devil don’t you fetch up the bottle?” (12) Vide Dillon’s travels through Spain. “The attendant domestic, terrified by the tone of wrath in which the last words were uttered, hurried on with submissive expedition, and Fra Jose sat down at length in his apartment to ruminate on the calamities and perplexities of the family, till he was actually overcome by the subject, and exclaimed in a tone of despair, “Both bottles empty! Then it is useless to meditate further on this subject.” * * * * * “He was roused at an earlier hour than he wished, by a message from Donna Clara, who, in the distress of a weak mind, accustomed always to factitious and external support, now felt as if every step she took without it, must lead to actual and instant perdition. Her fear of her husband, next to her superstitious fears, held the strongest power over her mind, and that morning she called Fra Jose to an early consultation of terror and inquietude.--Her great object was to conceal, if possible, the absence of her daughter on that eventful night; and finding that none of the domestics appeared conscious of it, and that amid the numerous household, only _one aged servant was absent_, of whose absence no one took notice amid the superfluous multitude of a Spanish establishment, her courage began to revive. It was raised still higher by a letter from Aliaga, announcing the necessity of his visiting a distant part of Spain, and of the marriage of his daughter with Montilla being deferred for some months----this sounded like reprieve in the ears of Donna Clara--she consulted with the priest, who answered in words of comfort, that if Donna Isidora’s short absence were known, it was but a slight evil, and if it were not known, it was none at all,--and he recommended to her, to ensure the secresy of the servants by means that he swore by his habit were infallible, as he had known them operate effectively among the servants of a far more powerful and extensive establishment.--“Reverend Father,” said Donna Clara, “I know of no establishment among the grandees of Spain more splendid than ours.”--“But I do, daughter,” said the priest, “and the head of that