They were sitting down to supper when L'Isle, seeing that the young friar remained by the fire, pointed out a vacant seat, and asked him to join them. But he shook his head. "You are eating flesh. I must fast to-day." "Because the Scriptures bid you?" L'Isle inquired. "Because the Church commands me." "You are aware, then, that there is no absolute injunction in Scripture to fast on particular days." "Yet the Church may have authority--it doubtless has authority to appoint such days," the young friar answered, seeming at once to stifle a doubt and his appetite. Cookery must be judged of by the palate, and not by the eye. So Lady Mabel made a strong effort to try the rabbits by the latter test--having had ocular proof that they were not cats in disguise. But, after persevering through two or three mouthfuls, the garlic, red pepper, and rancid oil, and the fact of having witnessed the whole process of cooking and fingering the fricassee, proved too much for her; and she was fain to be indebted to the commissary for a small piece of his steak, reeking hot, and dripping with its natural juices. The woman of the house now placed on a bench before the friar, some _broa_, or maize bread, and a piece of _bacalhao_, fried in oil. From the size of the morsel, the stock in the larder seemed to have run low, even in this article, which is nothing but codfish salted by British heretics for the benefit of the souls and bodies of the true sons of the Church. The friar eat alone and in silence, less intent on his meal than in watching and listening to the party at the table. "They are, every one of them, eating flesh, and this day is a fast," said the elder woman to the friar, in a tone of affected horror. "And they eat it almost raw," answered the friar, as Shortridge thrust an ounce of red beef into his mouth. "But I know not that the Church has prohibited that." The ladies and the commissary retired soon, fatigued with their long day's ride. The friar was devoutly telling his beads, and L'Isle sat musing by the fire, while the servants, in turn, took their places at the supper table. Presently the friar, having got through his devotions, rose as if about to retire for the night; but, as he passed L'Isle, he loitered, as if wishing to converse, perhaps for the last time, with this foreigner, whose position, character, and ideas, differed so much from his own, and who yet could make himself so well understood. As L'Isle looked up, he said: "Men of your profession see a great deal of the world." "Yes. A soldier is a traveler, even if he never goes out of his own country." "But the soldiers of your country visit the remotest parts of the world, the Indies in the east and west, and now this, our country, and many a land besides." "At one time the soldiers of Portugal did the same," said L'Isle.