The curate had asked to stand sponsor for it and himself bless the laying of the corner-stone, a ceremony to take place on the last day of the fiesta as one of its greatest solemnities.

The very coadjutor had timidly approached Ibarra with an offer of all the fees for masses that the devout would pay until the building was finished.

Even more, the rich and economical Sister Rufa had declared that if money should be lacking she would canvass other towns and beg for alms, with the mere condition that she be paid her expenses for travel and subsistence.

Ibarra thanked them all, as he answered, "We aren't going to have anything very great, since I am not rich and this building is not a church.

Besides, I didn't undertake to erect it at the expense of others." The younger men, students from Manila, who had come to take part in the fiesta, gazed at him in admiration and took him for a model; but, as it nearly always happens, when we wish to imitate great men, that we copy only their foibles and even their defects, since we are capable of nothing else, so many of these admirers took note of the way in which he tied his cravat, others of the style of his collar, and not a few of the number of buttons on his coat and vest.
The funereal presentiments of old Tasio seemed to have been dissipated forever.