“They had been some time on their way, when Donna Clara, who never spoke
till after a long preface of silence, perhaps to give what she said a
weight it might otherwise have wanted, said, with oracular deliberation,
“Daughter, I hear you fainted in the public walks last night--did you
meet with any thing that surprised or terrified you?”--“No,
Madam.”--“What, then, could be the cause of the emotion you betrayed at
the sight, as I am told--I know nothing--of a personage of extraordinary
demeanour?”--“Oh, I cannot, dare not tell!” said Isidora, dropping her
veil over her burning cheek. Then the irrepressible ingenuousness of her
former nature, rushing over her heart and frame like a flood, she sunk
from the cushion on which she sat at Donna Clara’s feet, exclaiming,
“Oh, mother, I will tell you all!”--“No!” said Donna Clara, repelling
her with a cold feeling of offended pride; “no!--there is no occasion. I
seek no confidence withheld and bestowed in the same breath; nor do I
like these violent emotions--they are unmaidenly. Your duties as a child
are easily understood--they are merely perfect obedience, profound
submission, and unbroken silence, except when you are addressed by me,
your brother, or Father Jose. Surely no duties were ever more easily
performed--rise, then, and cease to weep. If your conscience disturbs
you, accuse yourself to Father Jose, who will, no doubt, inflict a
penance proportioned to the enormity of your offence. I trust only he
will not err on the side of indulgence.” And so saying, Donna Clara, who
had never uttered so long a speech before, reclined back on her cushion,
and began to tell her beads with much devotion, till the arrival of the
carriage at its destination awoke her from a profound and peaceful
sleep. “It was near noon, and dinner in a cool low apartment near the garden
awaited only the approach of Father Jose, the confessor. He arrived
at length. He was a man of an imposing figure, mounted on a stately
mule. His features, at first view, bore strong traces of thought;
but, on closer examination, those traces seemed rather the result of
physical conformation, than of any intellectual exercise. The channel
was open, but the stream had not been directed there. However, though
defective in education, and somewhat narrow in mind, Father Jose was
a good man, and meant well. He loved power, and he was devoted to
the interests of the Catholic church; but he had frequently doubts,
(which he kept to himself), of the absolute necessity of celibacy,
and he felt (strange effect!) a chill all over him when he heard of
the fires of an _auto da fe_. Dinner was concluded; the fruit and
wine, the latter untasted by the females, were on the table,--the
choicest of them placed before Father Jose,--when Isidora, after a
profound reverence to her mother and the priest, retired, as usual,
to her apartment. Donna Clara turned to the confessor with a look
that demanded to be answered. “It is her hour for siesta,” said the
priest, helping himself to a bunch of grapes. “No, Father, no!” said
Donna Clara sadly; “her maid informs me she does not retire to sleep. She was, alas! too well accustomed to that burning climate where she
was lost in her infancy, to feel the heat as a Christian should. No,
she retires neither to pray or sleep, after the devout custom of
Spanish women, but, I fear, to”---- “To do what?” said the priest,
with horror in his voice--“To think, I fear,” said Donna Clara; “for
often I observe, on her return, the traces of tears on her face. I
tremble, Father, lest those tears be shed for that heathen land, that
region of Satan, where her youth was past.”--“I’ll give her a penance,”
said Father Jose, “that will save her the trouble of shedding tears
on the score of memory at least--these grapes are delicious.”--“But,
Father,” pursued Donna Clara, with all the weak but restless anxiety of
a superstitious mind, “though you have made me easy on that subject,
I still am wretched. Oh, Father, how she will talk sometimes!--like a
creature self-taught, that needed neither director or confessor but
her own heart.”--“How!” exclaimed Father Jose, “need neither confessor
or director!--she must be beside herself.”--“Oh, Father,” continued
Donna Clara, “she will say things in her mild and unanswerable manner,
that, armed with all my authority, I”---- “How--how is that?” said the
priest, in a tone of severity--“does she deny any of the tenets of the
holy Catholic church?”--“No! no! no!” said the terrified Donna Clara
crossing herself. “How then?”--“Why, she speaks in a manner in which
I never heard you, reverend Father, or any of the reverend brethren,
whom my devotion to the holy church has led me to hear, speak before. It is in vain I tell her that true religion consists in hearing
mass--in going to confession--in performing penance--in observing
the fasts and vigils--in undergoing mortification and abstinence--in
believing all that the holy church teaches--and hating, detesting,
abhorring, and execrating----” “Enough, daughter--enough,” said Father
Jose; “there can be no doubt of the orthodoxy of your creed?”--“I
trust not, holy Father,” said the anxious Donna Clara. “I were an
infidel to doubt it,” interposed the priest; “I might as well deny
this fruit to be exquisite, or this glass of Malaga to be worthy the
table of his Holiness the Pope, if he feasted all the Cardinals. But
how, daughter, as touching the supposed or apprehended defalcations
in Donna Isidora’s creed?”--“Holy Father, I have already explained my
own religious sentiments.”--“Yes--yes--we have had enough of them; now
for your daughter’s.”--“She will sometimes say,” said Donna Clara,
bursting into tears--“she will say, but never till greatly urged, that
religion ought to be a system whose spirit was universal love. Do you
understand any thing of that, Father?”--“Humph--humph!”--“That it must
be something that bound all who professed it to habits of benevolence,
gentleness, and humility, under every difference of creed and of
form.”--“Humph--humph!”--“Father,” said Donna Clara, a little piqued
at the apparent indifference with which Father Jose listened to her
communications, and resolved to rouse him by some terrific evidence of
the truth of her suspicions, “Father, I have heard her dare to express
a hope that the heretics in the train of the English ambassador might
not be everlastingly”---- “Hush!--I must not hear such sounds, or it
might be my duty to take severer notice of these lapses. However,
daughter,” continued Father Jose, “thus far I will venture for your
consolation.