Page:Life in Mexico vol 1.djvu/180

160 were the arms of Castille; said to have been hung on a portrait of Queen Cristina, when she entered Madrid. The agent begged Cn to buy them, asking at the same time an impossible price therefor.

There was moreover a large box full of relics from Jerusalem, which the padre told me could not be sold, but that I might choose whatever I liked, so that I returned home with various Agnus Deis, crucifixes and rosaries. The next day, a messenger from padre Leon brought me the painting of the Annunciation, which I had admired so much, and which is a sketch of Bayeu, a Valencian painter, from his own painting of the Annunciation in the royal chapel of Aranjuez; also the embroidered velvet, begging my acceptance of both. We have since wished to shew our sense of the padre's politeness, but he will neither accept presents, nor will he visit any one but such as in the hour of need require his spiritual services. In the house of sickness, and by the bed of death he is ever to be found, but chiefly if it is also the abode of poverty. In the house of the rich man he rarely visits, and then only when his presence has been requested—when he has been called in to administer spiritual consolation to the sick or the dying. But in the dwelling of the lowly, in the meanest and most wretched hovels, he has never to be sought. The guardian and friend of the poor, his charities are equally extensive and judicious. . ..

Yesterday, being a fête day, the Paséo was very full of carriages, and consequently more brilliant and amusing than usual. This Paséo is the Mexican