and shine, the silent, solemn,
outstretched arms, and became landmarks to many a guideless traveller
who had been told that his way would be by the first turn to the left
or the right, after passing the last one of the Senora Moreno's crosses,
which he couldn't miss seeing. And who shall say that it did not
often happen that the crosses bore a sudden message to some idle
heart journeying by, and thus justified the pious half of the Senora's
impulse? Certain it is, that many a good Catholic halted and crossed
himself when he first beheld them, in the lonely places, standing out in
sudden relief against the blue sky; and if he said a swift short prayer
at the sight, was he not so much the better?

The house, was of adobe, low, with a wide veranda on the three sides of
the inner court, and a still broader one across the entire front, which
looked to the south. These verandas, especially those on the inner
court, were supplementary rooms to the house. The greater part of the
family life went on in them. Nobody stayed inside the walls, except when
it was necessary. All the kitchen work, except the actual cooking, was
done here, in front of the kitchen doors and windows. Babies slept,
were washed, sat in the dirt, and played, on the veranda. The women said
their prayers, took their naps, and wove their lace there. Old Juanita
shelled her beans there, and threw the pods down on the tile floor,
till towards night they were sometimes piled up high around her, like
corn-husks at a husking. The herdsmen and shepherds smoked there,
lounged there, trained their dogs there; there the young made love, and
the old dozed; the benches, which ran the entire length of the walls,
were worn into hollows, and shone like satin; the tiled floors also were
broken and sunk in places, making little wells, which filled up in times
of hard rains, and were then an invaluable addition to the children's
resources for amusement, and also to the comfort of the dogs, cats, and
fowls, who picked about among them, taking sips from each.

The arched veranda along the front was a delightsome place. It must
have been eighty feet long, at least, for the doors of five large rooms
opened on it. The two westernmost rooms had been added on, and made four
steps higher than the others; which gave to that end of the veranda the
look of a balcony, or loggia. Here the Senora kept her flowers; great
red water-jars, hand-made by the Indians of San Luis Obispo Mission,
st