The President of the Commission, in his private life, has many points of similarity with Count de Caspe, that stainless gentleman the Filipinos still recall with veneration. Excepting the brilliancy of those splendid entertainments with which he endeavoured to blot out all racial differences by mingling in fraternal embrace Filipinos and Spaniards at the Malacañan villa, there ordinarily reigned in the governor’s mansion the placid silence of the home of a well-to-do retired merchant. The Countess, who on Thursdays did the honours of her salon with exquisite tact, was during the other days of the week a housekeeper who did not disdain to go to a grocery store to make purchases, or to look over the laundry list.

The same thing happens in the elegant chalet at Malate where