Senora Moreno; but no stranger would suspect
it, to see her gliding about, in her scanty black gown, with her rosary
hanging at her side, her soft dark eyes cast down, and an expression of
mingled melancholy and devotion on her face. She looked simply like a
sad, spiritual-minded old lady, amiable and indolent, like her race, but
sweeter and more thoughtful than their wont. Her voice heightened this
mistaken impression. She was never heard to speak either loud or fast.
There was at times even a curious hesitancy in her speech, which came
near being a stammer, or suggested the measured care with which people
speak who have been cured of stammering. It made her often appear as if
she did not known her own mind; at which people sometimes took heart;
when, if they had only known the truth, they would have known that the
speech hesitated solely because the Senora knew her mind so exactly that
she was finding it hard to make the words convey it as she desired, or
in a way to best attain her ends.

About this very sheep-shearing there had been, between her and the head
shepherd, Juan Canito, called Juan Can for short, and to distinguish him
from Juan Jose, the upper herdsman of the cattle, some discussions which
would have been hot and angry ones in any other hands than the Senora's.

Juan Canito wanted the shearing to begin, even though Senor Felipe were
ill in bed, and though that lazy shepherd Luigo had not yet got back
with the flock that had been driven up the coast for pasture.
"There were plenty of sheep on the place to begin with," he said one
morning,--"at least a thousand;" and by the time they were done, Luigo
would surely be back with the rest; and as for Senor Felipe's being in
bed, had not he, Juan Canito, stood at the packing-bag, and handled the
wool, when Senor Felipe was a boy? Why could he not do it again? The
Senora did not realize how time was going; there would be no shearers
to be hired presently, since the Senora was determined to have none
but Indians. Of course, if she would employ Mexicans, as all the other
ranches in the valley did, it would be different; but she was resolved
upon having Indians,--"God knows why," he interpolated surlily, under
his breath.

"I do not quite understand you, Juan," interrupted Senora Moreno at the
precise instant the last syllable of this disrespectful ejaculation had
escaped Juan's lips; "speak a little louder. I fear I am growing deaf in
my old age."

What gentl