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out-of-the-way place Sulaco is!—and for a harbour, too! As-
tonishing!’
‘Ah, but we are very proud of it. It used to be historically
important. The highest ecclesiastical court for two viceroy-
alties, sat here in the olden time,’ she instructed him with
animation.
‘I am impressed. I didn’t mean to be disparaging. You
seem very patriotic.’
‘The place is lovable, if only by its situation. Perhaps you
don’t know what an old resident I am.’
‘How old, I wonder,’ he murmured, looking at her with
a slight smile. Mrs. Gould’s appearance was made youth-
ful by the mobile intelligence of her face. ‘We can’t give
you your ecclesiastical court back again; but you shall have
more steamers, a railway, a telegraph-cable—a future in
the great world which is worth infinitely more than any
amount of ecclesiastical past. You shall be brought in touch
with something greater than two viceroyalties. But I had
no notion that a place on a sea-coast could remain so iso-
lated from the world. If it had been a thousand miles inland
now—most remarkable! Has anything ever happened here
for a hundred years before to-day?’
While he talked in a slow, humorous tone, she kept her
little smile. Agreeing ironically, she assured him that cer-
tainly not—nothing ever happened in Sulaco. Even the
revolutions, of which there had been two in her time, had
respected the repose of the place. Their course ran in the
more populous southern parts of the Republic, and the great
valley of Sta. Marta, which was like one great battlefield of