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298 vegetation of the past artistic glory of Spain! European travellers, who passed through South America twenty years ago, collected at very low prices inestimable works of the best masters, which they found cast aside as useless lumber covered with dust and cobwebs; and when the day of the resurrection of the arts came to South America, when the bandage fell from the eyes of the people, the churches, the rising museums, and the amateurs found from time to time some picture of Murillo to expose to view, asking pardon for the injustice of which it had been the victim, now restored to public consideration, and to the lofty position which corresponded to its merits.

"The strife went on, therefore, between my poor mother, who loved her two Dominican saints as members of her family, and my young sisters who sacrificed the laws of the house to good appearances and the prejudices of the times. Every day, at all hours, under every pretext, the debate was renewed, some threatening glance was cast at the saints, as if to say, "you must leave your places vacant;" while my mother contemplated them with tender looks, exclaiming, "Poor saints! how badly they treat you when you harm no one!" But by this continuous battery, the ear became accustomed to the reproach, resistance was weaker every day, for if they were looked upon as indispensable objects of religion, it was not necessary that they should be in the parlor; the sleeping apartment was a much more appropriate place of worship, where their blessing could be invoked upon the very bed. As a family legacy, they were subject to the same arguments, while as an ornament they were in the worst taste; and from one concession to another, my mother's mind relented little by little, and one morning when her resistance would go no further than the wringing of her hands, when the guardian