e, suave, courteous tones! and the calm dark eyes rested on
Juan Canito with a look to the fathoming of which he was as unequal
as one of his own sheep would have been. He could not have told why he
instantly and involuntarily said, "Beg your pardon, Senora."

"Oh, you need not ask my pardon, Juan," the Senora replied with
exquisite gentleness; "it is not you who are to blame, if I am deaf. I
have fancied for a year I did not hear quite as well as I once did.
But about the Indians, Juan; did not Senor Felipe tell you that he
had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last autumn,
Alessandro's band from Temecula? They will wait until we are ready for
them. Senor Felipe will send a messenger for them. He thinks them the
best shearers in the country. He will be well enough in a week or two,
he thinks, and the poor sheep must bear their loads a few days longer.
Are they looking well, do you think, Juan? Will the crop be a good one?
General Moreno used to say that you could reckon up the wool-crop to a
pound, while it was on the sheep's backs."

"Yes, Senora," answered the mollified Juan; "the poor beasts look
wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all winter.
We'll not come many pounds short of our last year's crop, if any.
Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that--Luigo will
bring his flock back."

The Senora smiled, in spite of herself, at the pause and gulp with which
Juan had filled in the hiatus where he had longed to set a contemptuous
epithet before Luigo's name.

This was another of the instances where the Senora's will and Juan
Canito's had clashed and he did not dream of it, having set it all down
as usual to the score of young Senor Felipe.

Encouraged by the Senora's smile, Juan proceeded: "Senor Felipe can see
no fault in Luigo, because they were boys together; but I can tell him,
he will rue it, one of these mornings, when he finds a flock of sheep
worse than dead on his hands, and no thanks to anybody but Luigo. While
I can have him under my eye, here in the valley, it is all very well;
but he is no more fit to take responsibility of a flock, than one of
the very lambs themselves. He'll drive them off their feet one day, and
starve them the next; and I've known him to forget to give them water.
When he's in his dreams, the Virgin only knows what he won't do."

During this brief and almost unprecedented outburst of Juan's the
Senora's countenance had been