He had a considerable distance to traverse, through many narrow dirty streets, up and down hill, till he reached the convent, situated in the upper part of the city. It was a plain and solid building of stone, suited to the unostentatious tastes and habits of its founders, whose great care is, to avoid show or pretensions of any sort. He was received at the entrance by one of the lay members of the order, who informed him that the principal was at that moment engaged with a stranger, and requesting him to wait for a short time, till he should be at liberty to receive him, and conducting him, through several passages and corridors, to a small apartment appropriated to the guest who might visit any of the fathers, he there left him. If primitive simplicity, and want of all outward decoration, were marks of peculiar sanctity, this room might vie with any in holiness; for, except a few high-backed chairs, of some dark wood, and a table of the same colour, with writing materials, furniture there was none, the walls being simply whitewashed, and the ceiling of chestnut, a wood much used in Portugal, particularly in monastic buildings. Don Luis, being left alone, paced the room with hurried steps, half repenting that he had thus exposed himself--he knew not for how long a time--to the company of his own bitter and agitated thoughts. There was not an object within to draw off his attention; neither, at that moment, would a picture of Titian's, nor a statue from the hands of Praxiteles, have had sufficient charms to attract his observation. But at length he reached an open window, which looked into a garden filled with orange-trees loaded with their delicate-tinted flowers and rich fruit, round the roots of which the gardener had just allowed to flow a rill of water; and the grateful trees were exhaling their delicious odours, in return, as it were, for the benefit bestowed, scenting the air far and wide. So balmy was the air, so soothing the scent, that even his sad thoughts yielded to the soft influence of kind Nature's gifts,--a calmness stealing imperceptibly over his soul, and changing the whole current of his thoughts. "How delightful would it be," he fancied, "to rest, in a quiet seclusion like this, from all the cares and troubles of the world, free from the anxieties and disappointments of love, the fever of ambition, the intrigues of the Court, the scenes of strife which rage beyond its walls! Yet!--No, no," he exclaimed, after his thoughts had been quiescent for some time, "man was not formed for such a life. How could I endure the seclusion and monotony of the cloister, the fasts and penances, the routine of worship, the separation from the gentler part of creation, false and fickle though they be?" he added bitterly. "No, I am not formed for a life of seclusion and indolence."