The good father, charmed with so heroic an action in a person whose wants might have excused his appropriating it to himself, surveyed me from head to foot, and commended my disinterested and religious behaviour. He could not sufficiently extol me; and feeling, at the same time, a desire to render me some service, as a recompense for my virtue, he asked me a few questions as to my situation in life, and talents, that he might know what I was capable of. “Reverend Father,” said I, “I have now been at Seville for some time, entirely out of employment. I was Receiver of Taxes at Madrid; but finding myself inclined to spend my own money to assist rather than persecute the poor, I was compelled to resign that situation; from which I became steward to a nobleman, whose affairs were in great confusion. These might soon have been settled; but in proportion as I arranged them, he involved them afresh, so that after having served him four years with the utmost zeal and fidelity, I was obliged to leave him as much a beggar as when I first entered his service, and without even having received my wages.” The Confessor listened to me with great attention; and surprised at hearing a man, whose dress did not much prepossess him in favour of his education, speak in such good terms, he asked me if I had ever studied. I told him that I had studied most assiduously with the intention of entering the church; but, that after having seriously reflected on a vocation which required so many virtues which I did not possess, I had given up such an idea. He was curious to ascertain how far I had gone in Theology; and as all my lessons were still fresh in my memory, I answered his questions in a manner which astonished him. My interview with him lasted two hours, and he was so well pleased with me, that he assured me of his friendship; and, in taking leave, told me, that on the Sunday following he would advertise the purse I had found, in his church, and that if I would call upon him on the Tuesday following, he hoped he might by that time hear of some place to suit me.