LEGENDS OF THE CITY OF MEXICO
the moon to a sick, fretful child. And the devil must have been very uneasy that night, Señor, because the good nature of that kind-hearted priest lost to him what by rights was his own!
As Padre Lanchitas spoke the last words of the absolution, the man fell back again on his mat with a sharp crackling sound like that of dry bones rattling; and the woman had left the room; and the candle was sputtering out its very last sparks. Therefore the Padre went out in a hurry through the still open door into the street; and no sooner had he come there than the door closed behind him sharply, as though some one on the inside had pushed against it strongly to shut it fast.
Out in the street he had expected to find the old woman waiting for him; and he looked about for her everywhere, desiring to tell her that she must send for him when the man's fever left him that he might return and hear from the man a real confession, and really shrive him of his sins. But the old woman was quite gone. Thinking that she must have slipped past him in the darkness into the house, he knocked at the door lightly, and then loudly;
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