One day a mischievous impulse led me to inquire, in connection with a chat about the Escorial, "And how do you like Philip II?"
The black eyes shot one ray of sympathetic merriment, but the Spaniard and the nun were on their guard.
"He was a very good Catholic," she replied demurely.
"So was _Isabel la Católica_," I responded. "But don't you think she may have been a trifle more agreeable?"
"Perhaps she was a little more _simpática_," admitted the _hermanita_, but that was her utmost concession. She would not even allow that Philip had a sorry end.
"If his body groaned, his soul was communing with the Blessed Saints and paid no heed."
At the corner of the street which led under the great garden wall to the heavily barred gate of the convent was a flower-stand. The shrewd, swift-tongued Madame in charge well knew the look of the unwary, and usually succeeded in selling me a cluster of drooping blossoms at twice the value of the fresh, throwing in an extra leaf or stem at the close of the bargain with an air of prodigal benevolence. The handful of flowers would be smilingly accepted by the little sister, but instantly laid aside nor favored with glance or touch until the close of the visit, when they would be lifted again with a winsome word of acknowledgment and carried away, probably to spend their sweetness at the marble feet of the Virgin. In vain I tried to coax from this scorner of God's earth some sign of pleasure in the flowers themselves.
"Don't you care for tea-roses?" "_Ah, el mundo pasa._ But their color is exquisite."
Yet her eyes did not turn to the poor posy for the two hours following.
"This mignonette has only the grace of sweetness."
"It is a delicate scent, but it will not last. _El mundo pasa._"
She held the sprays at arm's length for a moment, and then laid them down on a mantel at the farther end of the room.
"I am sorry these violets are not fresher."
"But no! The touch of Time has not yet found them. Still, it is only a question of to-morrow. _El mundo pasa._"
"Yes, the world passes. But is it not good while it lasts?"
"The world good! No, no, and a thousand times no. Behold it now at the end of the nineteenth century,--wars and sorrows and bitter discontents, evil deeds and evil passions everywhere. Do you see the peace of Christ in the faces on the Paris streets? The blossoms of this earth, the pleasures of this world, the affections of this life, all have the taste of death. But here in God's own garden we live even now His everlasting life."