CHAPTER III.
The Convent of the Bernardines.—The young Creole Lady.
Arrived at the terrace, we stood for some time in silent contemplation. At our feet lay the ancient city of the Aztecs, with its domes and spires innumerable glittering in the pale moonlight. Not far from us, the Cathedral threw its gigantic shadow and the profile of its towers on the Plaza Mayor. In the distance, the Parian[1] reared its black mass in the midst of spaces whitened by the moon, like a dark rock surrounded by foaming billows. Still farther off you recognized the elegant cupola of Santa Teresa, the fine domes of the convent of St. Francisco, the steeples of St. Augustin and the Bernardines, and behind this majestic crenulated mass of buildings, cupolas, and colored spires, you saw the country bathed in a white vapor, which, rising from the lakes, encircles the city like a luminous halo.
Don Tadeo was the first to break silence by asking me some questions about the business which had been intrusted to him. I eagerly replied, hoping that he would soon make me some revelations about himself, which could not fail to be interesting; but the licentiate had fallen into a profound reverie, and I was beginning to despair of success, when the merest accident came to my relief. This was the toll of a distant bell, which suddenly rose, like a mysterious wail,
- ↑ An old bazar, not unlike the Temple-market in Paris.
