you. Now, are you going to be as cruel as Maese Pérez? He would never save me the journey, by going to play the Christmas Eve mass in the cathedral."
"Next year," replied the organist, "I promise to give you the pleasure; since, for all the gold in the world, I would never play this organ again."
"But why not?" interrupted the prelate.
"Because," returned the organist, endeavoring to repress the agitation which revealed itself in the pallor of his face—" because it is so old and poor; one cannot express one's self on it satisfactorily."
The archbishop withdrew, followed by his attendants. One after another the litters of the great folk disappeared in the windings of the neighboring streets. The group in the portico scattered. The sexton was locking up the doors, when two women were perceived, who had stopped to cross themselves and mutter a prayer, and who were now going on their way into Dueñas Alley.
"What would you have, my dear Doña Baltasara?" one was saying. "That's the way I am. Every crazy person with his whim. The barefooted Capuchins might assure me that it was so, and I would not believe it. That man never played what we have heard. Why, I have heard him a thousand times in San Bartolomé,
