Josè could not keep back the tears. He turned his head, that Rosendo might not see them. Of the three little poems, two were indited to the Virgin Mary, and one to Carmen. He lingered over one of the verses of the latter, for it awoke responsive echoes in his own soul:

“Without you, the world––a desert of sadness;
But with you, sweet child––a vale of delight;
You laugh, like the sunbeam––my gloom becomes gladness;
You sing––from my heart flee the shadows of night.”

“I––I have written a good deal of poetry during my life, Padre. I will show you some of it, if you wish,” Rosendo advanced, encouraged by Josè’s approbation.

“Decidedly, I would!” returned Josè with animation. “And to think, without instruction, without training! What a lesson!”

“Yes, Padre, when I think of the blessed Virgin or the little Carmen, my thoughts seem to come in poetry.” He stooped over the girl and kissed her. The child reached up and clasped her arms about his black neck.

“Padre Rosendo,” she said sweetly, “you are a poem, a big one, a beautiful one.”

“Aye,” seconded Josè, and there was a hitch in his voice, “you are an epic––and the world is the poorer that it cannot read you!”

But, though showing such laudable curiosity regarding the elements which entered into their simple life in Simití, Rosendo seldom spoke of matters pertaining to religion. Yet Josè knew that the old faith held him, and that he would never, on this plane of existence, break away from it. He clung to his escapulario; he prostrated himself before the statue of the Virgin; he invoked the aid of Virgin and Saints when in distress; and, unlike most of the male inhabitants of the town, he scrupulously prayed his rosary every night, whether at home, or on the lonely margins of the Tiguí. He had once said to Josè that he was glad Padre Diego had baptised the little Carmen––he felt safer to have it so. And yet he would not have her brought up in the Holy Catholic faith. Let her choose or formulate her own religious beliefs, they should not be influenced by him or others.

“You can never make me believe, Padre,” he would sometimes say to the priest, “that the little Carmen was not left by the angels on the river bank.”

“But, Rosendo, how foolish!” remonstrated Josè. “You have Escolastico’s account, and the boat captain’s.”