ned her steady glance full on Margarita's face. "You would not
be any happier if she were deceived, do you think?" she said gravely.

"O Senorita, after it is mended? If it really does not show?" pleaded
the girl.

"I will tell her myself, and not till after it is mended," said Ramona;
but she did not smile.

"Ah, Senorita," said Margarita, deprecatingly, "you do not know what it
is to have the Senora displeased with one."

"Nothing can be so bad as to be displeased with one's self," retorted
Ramona, as she walked swiftly away to her room with the linen rolled up
under her arm. Luckily for Margarita's cause, she met no one on the way.
The Senora had welcomed Father Salvierderra at the foot of the veranda
steps, and had immediately closeted herself with him. She had much to
say to him,--much about which she wished his help and counsel, and much
which she wished to learn from him as to affairs in the Church and in
the country generally.

Felipe had gone off at once to find Juan Canito, to see if everything
were ready for the sheep-shearing to begin on the next day, if the
shearers arrived in time; and there was very good chance of their coming
in by sundown this day, Felipe thought, for he had privately instructed
his messenger to make all possible haste, and to impress on the Indians
the urgent need of their losing no time on the road.

It had been a great concession on the Senora's part to allow the
messenger to be sent off before she had positive intelligence as to the
Father's movements. But as day after day passed and no news came, even
she perceived that it would not do to put off the sheep-shearing much
longer, or, as Juan Canito said, "forever." The Father might have fallen
ill; and if that were so, it might very easily be weeks before they
heard of it, so scanty were the means of communication between the
remote places on his route of visitation. The messenger had therefore
been sent to summon the Temecula shearers, and Senora had resigned
herself to the inevitable; piously praying, however, morning and night,
and at odd moments in the day, that the Father might arrive before the
Indians did. When she saw him coming up the garden-walk, leaning on
the arm of her Felipe, on the afternoon of the very day which was the
earliest possible day for the Indians to arrive, it was not strange that
she felt, mingled with the joy of her greeting to her long-loved friend
and confessor, a triumphant exultation that the sa