"If there are any? And do you doubt that there are extraordinary things?"
"Not at all. One of them is the day you do not preach me a sermon. But the supernatural I don't believe in. I am like Saint Thomas."
"And you glory in it! It is a wonder you do not say also that you are like Saint Peter in that in which he failed!"
"But, madam, have you seen anything of the kind, or is it only because you can swallow everything, like a shark?"
"It is the same, to all intents, as if I had seen it."
"Aunt, what was it?" asked Elvira.
"My child," said the good old woman, turning toward her niece, "in the first place, that which happened to the Countess of Villaoran. Her ladyship herself told it to me when we were superintending her estate of Quintos. This lady had the pious custom of having a mass said for condemned criminals at the very hour they were being executed. When the infamous Villico was in those parts, committing so much iniquity, she allowed herself to say that if he should be taken, she would not send to have a mass said for him, as she had for others. And when he was executed, she kept her word.
"Not long alter, one night when she was sleeping quietly, she was awakened by a pitiful voice near the head of her bed, calling her by name. She sat up in bed terrified, but saw [{664}] nothing, though the lamp was burning on the table. Presently she heard the same voice, even more pitiful than at first, calling her from the yard, and before she had fairly recovered from her surprise, she heard it a third time, and from a great distance, calling her name. She cried out so loudly that those who were in the house ran to her room, and found her pale and terrified. But no one else had heard the voice.
"On the following day, hardly were the candles lighted in the churches when a mass was being offered for the poor felon, and the countess, on her knees before the altar was praying with fervor and penitence, for the clemency of God, which is not like that of men, excludes none. And now Rita, what do you think?"
"I think she dreamed it."