“Oh what an exquisite enjoyment!” said the yawning priest, as he looked
on the sleeping beauty without another emotion than that of the delight
of an uninterrupted repose.--“Pray, don’t disturb her,” he said, yawning
himself out of the room--“after such a night as we all have had, sleep
must be a very refreshing and laudable exercise; and so I commend you to
the protection of the holy saints!”--“Oh reverend Father!--Oh holy
Father!” cried Donna Clara clinging to him, “desert me not in this
extremity--this has been the work of magic--of infernal spirits. See how
profoundly she sleeps, though we are speaking, and it is now
day-light.”--“Daughter, you are much mistaken,” answered the drowsy
priest; “people can sleep soundly even in the day-time; and for proof
send me, as I am now retiring to rest, a bottle of Foncarral or
Valdepenas--not that I value the richest vintage of Spain from the
Chacoli of Biscay to the Mataro of Catalonia,(12) but I would never have
it said that I slept in the day-time, but for sufficient
reason.”----“Holy Father!” answered Donna Clara, “do you not think my
daughter’s disappearance and intense slumber are the result of
preternatural causes?”--“Daughter,” answered the priest, contracting his
brows, “let me have some wine to slake the intolerable thirst caused by
my anxiety for the welfare of your family, and let me meditate some
hours afterwards on the measures best to be adopted, and then--when I
awake, I will give you my opinion.”----“Holy Father, you shall judge for
me in every thing.”--“It were not amiss, daughter,” said the priest
retiring, “if a few slices of ham, or some poignant sausages,
accompanied the wine--it might, as it were, abate the deleterious
effects of that abominable liquor, which I never drink but on
emergencies like these.”--“Holy Father, they shall be ordered,” said the
anxious mother--“but do you not think my daughter’s sleep is
supernatural?”--“Follow me to mine apartment, daughter,” answered the
priest, exchanging his cowl for a night-cap, which one of the numerous
household obsequiously presented him, “and you will soon see that sleep
is a natural effect of a natural cause. Your daughter has doubtless
passed a very fatiguing night, and so have you, and so have I, though
perhaps from very different causes; but all those causes dispose us to a
profound repose.--I have no doubt of mine--fetch up the wine and
sausages--I am very weary--Oh I am weak and worn with fasts and
watching, and the labours of exhortation. My tongue cleaves to the roof
of my mouth, and my jaws cling together,--perhaps a draught or two might
dissolve their parching adhesion. But I do so hate wine----why the devil
don’t you fetch up the bottle?”

  (12) Vide Dillon’s travels through Spain. “The attendant domestic, terrified by the tone of wrath in which the
last words were uttered, hurried on with submissive expedition, and Fra
Jose sat down at length in his apartment to ruminate on the calamities
and perplexities of the family, till he was actually overcome by the
subject, and exclaimed in a tone of despair, “Both bottles empty! Then
it is useless to meditate further on this subject.” * * * * *

“He was roused at an earlier hour than he wished, by a message from
Donna Clara, who, in the distress of a weak mind, accustomed always to
factitious and external support, now felt as if every step she took
without it, must lead to actual and instant perdition. Her fear of her
husband, next to her superstitious fears, held the strongest power over
her mind, and that morning she called Fra Jose to an early consultation
of terror and inquietude.--Her great object was to conceal, if possible,
the absence of her daughter on that eventful night; and finding that
none of the domestics appeared conscious of it, and that amid the
numerous household, only _one aged servant was absent_, of whose absence
no one took notice amid the superfluous multitude of a Spanish
establishment, her courage began to revive. It was raised still higher
by a letter from Aliaga, announcing the necessity of his visiting a
distant part of Spain, and of the marriage of his daughter with Montilla
being deferred for some months----this sounded like reprieve in the ears
of Donna Clara--she consulted with the priest, who answered in words of
comfort, that if Donna Isidora’s short absence were known, it was but a
slight evil, and if it were not known, it was none at all,--and he
recommended to her, to ensure the secresy of the servants by means that
he swore by his habit were infallible, as he had known them operate
effectively among the servants of a far more powerful and extensive
establishment.--“Reverend Father,” said Donna Clara, “I know of no
establishment among the grandees of Spain more splendid than
ours.”--“But I do, daughter,” said the priest, “and the head of that
establishment is--the Pope;--but go now, and awake your daughter, who
deserves to sleep till dooms-day, as she seems totally to have forgotten
the hour of breakfast. It is not for myself I speak, daughter, but I
cannot bear to see the regularity of a magnificent household thus
interrupted; for myself, a basin of chocolate, and a cluster of grapes,
will be sufficient; and to allay the crudity of the grapes, a glass of
Malaga.--Your glasses, by the bye, are the shallowest I ever drank out
of--could you not find some means to get from Ildefonso(13) glasses of
the right make, with short shanks and ample bodies? Yours resemble those
of Quichotte, all limbs and no trunk. I like one that resembles his
squire, a spacious body and a shank that may be measured by my little
finger.”--“I will send to St Ildefonso this day,” answered Donna
Clara.--“Go and awake your daughter first,” said the priest. (13) The celebrated manufactory for glass in Spain. “As he spoke, Isidora entered the room--the mother and the priest both
stood amazed. Her countenance was as serene, her step as equal, and her
mein as composed, as if she were totally unconscious of the terror and
distress her disappearance the preceding night had caused. To the first
short silence of amazement, succeeded a storm of interrogations from
Donna Clara and Fra Jose in concert--why--where--wherefore--and what,
and with whom and how--that was all they could articulate. They might as
well have spared themselves the trouble, for neither that day nor many
following, could the remonstrances, intreaties, or menaces of her
mother, aided by the spiritual authority and more powerful anxiety of
the priest, extort from her a word of explanation on the cause of her
absence that awful night. When closely and sternly pressed, Isidora’s
mind seemed to assume something of the wild but potent spirit of
independence, which her early habits and feelings might have
communicated to her.