And the door opened and shut again softly. The Señor de Elorza remained motionless in the same position in which his daughter left him, sitting with his hands clasped and his head bent on his breast.
The room remained in darkness. The noises outside slowly died away. An immense, keen, cruel grief palpitated in that lonely room, and a pair of fixed, stupefied, tearless eyes reflected the few rays of light that still wandered lost in the atmosphere.
How long did he remain so?
Perhaps the little birds that came at dawn to perch on the bars of the balconies might reply. But the pallor of his cheeks, the livid circles around his eyes, and the deep wrinkles in his brow, doubtless more exactly told.
CHAPTER XV.
LET US REJOICE, BELOVED.
IN the small but pretty church of the nuns of San Bernardo, in Nieva, there was great bustling. The sacristan, aided by three acolytes, the two serving women of the convent, and a female from the city, celebrated for her skill in dressing the saints, were stirring up a more than ordinary noise in brushing the ornaments of the altars with fox tails and feather dusters. They had no hesitation in standing upon them, and even climbing upon the saints themselves, whenever it was required by the need of dusting some carved work or placing a taper in the proper place. The Mother Abbess from the choir, with her forehead pressed against the grating, shouted her orders like a general-in-chief, in a sharp, piping voice.
"A candlestick there! Yonder a wreath of flowers! Lift up that lamp a little more! Place the crown on that Virgin straight...."
In the interior of the convent likewise reigned considerable excitement. A group of nuns was watching at the door of a cell, as one of their companions was giving the last touches to the poor bed which she was making. She had just put up above the pillow the crucifix demanded by the rules. A great silver waiter stood on the table, which was pine, likewise according to the rules. When the nun had made the bed ready, she came out of the cell, addressing a word or two to the others as she passed. Then she returned with a bundle of clothes in her hand, and all hastened to relieve her of them, unfolding them, pulling them, and giving them a hundred turns. It was the complete dress of a novice,—the white flannel tunic, the linen hood, the shoes, the rosary, the bronze crucifix, and other things. The nuns looked eagerly at each one of the articles, as though it were something that they had never seen before, uttering in low voices many different opinions.
"Ay! it seems to me that this rosary has very coarse beads."—"No, sister, take yours and you will see that they are alike."—"I am going to see, just for my own satisfaction.... It's true; they are alike.... What a goose!"—"The flannel is too harsh."—"It is because it wasn't well washed."—"This hood is beautifully ironed!"—"Hesús mio! what stitches!... that is not sewing, it is basting!... Who made this tunic?"—"The Sister Isabel."—"Then it's splendid!"—"Don't say so, sister, perhaps you wouldn't have done it so well!"—"I? do it worse ... Come ... come ... never in my life did I make such a botch!"—"How many have you ever done, sister?"—"Never did I, never!" repeated the nun, in angry voice. "I could sew better when I was seven years old."
At this moment the Mother Superior appeared in the passage-way; the nun who had chided her companion stepped aside from the group, and said to her,—