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Chiapa Chocolate return to the path of duty, but he hoped on from Sunday to Sunday in vain.

Would that the story ended as stories of strife and bitterness always should end; so that we might tell how the ladies yielded at length, how that rejoicings were held and a general reconciliation effected:—but the historian may not pervert facts, to suit his or his readers' gratification.

On Saturday evening the old bishop was more than usually anxious; he paced up and down his library, meditating on the sermon he purposed preaching on the following morning—a fruitless task, for he knew that no one would be there but a few poor Mexicans. Sick at heart, he all but wished that he had yielded for peace sake, but conscience told him that such a course would have been wrong; and the great feature in Salazar's character was his rigid sense of duty. He leaned on his elbows and looked out of a window which opened on a lane between the palace and the cathedral.

"Silly boy!" muttered the prelate. "Luis is always prattling with that girl. I thought better of the fair sex till of late." He spoke these words as his eyes caught his page, chattering at the door with a dark-eyed Creole servant-maid of the De Solis family. Presently the bishop clapped his hands, and a domestic entered. "Send Luis to me."

When the page came up, the old man greeted him with a half-smile.

"Well, my son, I wish my chocolate to be 277