CHAPTER XIII.
In the House of Tasio.
On the morning of the following day, Juan Crisostomo Ibarra, after visiting his estates, went to the house of Tasio, the philosopher, his father’s friend.
Quiet reigned in the old man’s garden. The swallows were flying about the gables of the house, but they were making scarcely a sound. The windows were covered with vines which clung to the old, moss-covered wall and made the house appear all the more solitary and quiet. Ibarra tied his horse to a post and, walking almost on tip-toes, crossed the clean and well-cultivated garden. He went up the stairs and, as the door was open, walked in. An old man leaned over a book in which he seemed to be writing. On the walls of the room were collections of insects and leaves, maps, and some shelves of books an
