“Another long pause was broken by the visitor. “You were listening, I think,” he said, “to a wild and terrible story of a being who was commissioned on an unutterable errand,--even to tempt spirits in woe, at their last mortal extremity, to barter their hopes of future happiness for a short remission of their temporary sufferings.”--“I heard nothing of that,” said Don Francisco, whose recollection, none of the clearest naturally, was not much improved by the length of the narrative he had just listened to, and by the sleep into which he had fallen since he heard it. “Nothing?” said the visitor, with something of abruptness and asperity in his tone that made the hearer start--“nothing?--I thought there was mention too of that unhappy being to whom Walberg confessed his severest trials were owing,--in comparison with whose fearful visitations those of even famine were as dust in the balance.”--“Yes, yes,” answered Don Francisco, startled into sudden recollection, “I remember there was a mention of the devil,--or his agent,--or something”---- “Senhor,” said the stranger interrupting him, with an expression of wild and fierce derision, which was lost on Aliaga--“Senhor, I beg you will not confound personages who have the honour to be so nearly allied, and yet so perfectly distinct as the devil and his agent, or agents. You yourself, Senhor, who, of course, as an orthodox and inveterate Catholic, must abhor the enemy of mankind, have often acted as his agent, and yet would be somewhat offended at being mistaken for him.” Don Francisco crossed himself repeatedly, and devoutly disavowed his ever having been an agent of the enemy of man. “Will you dare to say so?” said his singular visitor, not raising his voice as the insolence of the question seemed to require, but depressing it to the lowest whisper as he drew his seat nearer his astonished companion--“Will you dare to say so?--Have you never erred?--Have you never felt one impure sensation?--Have you never indulged a transient feeling of hatred, or malice, or revenge?--Have you never forgot to do the good you ought to do,--or remembered to do the evil you ought not to have done?--Have you never in trade overreached a dealer, or banquetted on the spoils of your starving debtor?--Have you never, as you went to your daily devotions, cursed from your heart the wanderings of your heretical brethren,--and while you dipped your fingers in the holy water, hoped that every drop that touched your pores, would be visited on them in drops of brimstone and sulphur?--Have you never, as you beheld the famished, illiterate, degraded populace of your country, exulted in the wretched and temporary superiority your wealth has given you,--and felt that the wheels of your carriage would not roll less smoothly if the way was paved with the heads of your countrymen? Orthodox Catholic--old Christian--as you boast yourself to be,--is not this true?--and dare you say you have not been an agent of Satan? I tell