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From Eliza Cook's Journal.
THE CHURCH OF THE VASA D'AGUA.
One very hot evening, in the year 1815, the curate of San Pedro, a village distant but a few leagues from Seville, returned very much fatigued to his poor home; his worthy housekeeper, Senora Margarita, about seventy years of age, awaited him. However much any one might have been accustomed to distress and privation among the Spanish peasantry, it was impossible not to be struck with the evidence of poverty in the house of the good priest. The nakedness of the walls, and scantiness of the furniture, were the more apparent, from a certain air about them of better days. Senora Margarita had just prepared for her master's supper an olla podrida, which notwithstanding the sauce, and high sounding name, was nothing more than the remains of his dinner, which she had disguised with the greatest skill. The curate, gratified at the odor of this savory dish, exclaimed,—
"Thank God, Margarita, for this dainty dish. By San Pedro, friend, you may well bless your stars to find such a supper in the house of your host."
At the word host, Margarita raised her eyes, and beheld a stranger who Accompanied her master. The face of the old dame assumed suddenly an expression of wrath and disappointment; her angry glances fell on the new comer, and again on her master, who looked down, and said with the timidity of a child who dreads the remonstrance of his parent:—
"Peace, Margarita, where there is enough, for two, there is always enough for three, and you would not have wished me to leave a Christian to starve? he has not eaten for three days."
"Santa Maria! he a Christian, he looks more like a robber," and muttering to herself, the housekeeper left the room. During this parley, the stranger remained motionless at the threshold of the door; he was tall, with long black hair, and flashing eyes, his clothes were in tatters, and the long rifle which he carried excited distrust rather than favor.
"Must I go away?" he inquired.
The curate replied, with an emphatic gesture, "never shall he, whom I shelter, be driven away, or made unwelcome: but sit down, put aside your gun, let us say grace, and to our repast."