won. His own faith in his manhood
came back to him and gave him strength; the doubt and trouble were
cast out of his soul; a steadfast light shone clearly upon the way
that he must go. And the silent counselors around him confirmed his
choice. By the very utterness of their silence, as it seemed to him,
they were as strong voices declaring that Love is but the dying
daughter of Time, while Honor is the deathless son of Eternity.

When he stood up, the fight ended, he was very pale, and sweat stood
in great drops upon his forehead; but in every line of his figure was
firmness. Erect and steadily--with something of the feeling, as he
bethought him, that had upheld him once when leading his men upon a
most desperate charge--he marched between the graves and out again
through the gate-way. His resolute step was in keeping with his
resolute purpose. Love lowered her sword and fell back, conquered. The
path of Honor was clear.

* * * * *

Being cheered by her prayer and by the good saint's promise that it
should be granted, Pancha went home blithely and with a heart at rest.
And further cheer came to her from her mother, the excellent Catalina.
By profession, this good Catalina was a _lavandera_. Hers was a
vicarious virtue, for while her washing was endless, its visible
results rarely had any perceptible connection with herself. Indeed, it
is a fact that the washer-women of Mexico are upheld by so lofty a
sense of their duty to their employers that only by the operation of
some extraordinary law of chance is it that their own garments ever
get washed at all.

Down by the edge of the clear stream, in company with many other
washer-women, Catalina practised her honorable vocation, squatted upon
the ground and having in front of her a broad, flat stone. On this
stone she soaped and rubbed and squeezed each separate garment until
her fine knowledge of her art told her that cleanliness had been
achieved, and that for the perfecting of her work was needed only
copious rinsing in the running stream. Close beside her, always, was a
little fire, whereon rested a little boiler; and thence smoke and
steam curled up together amidst the branches of the overhanging trees.
On the low bushes near by were spread the drying clothes; in the
middle distance stood out the straw-thatched hut; and beyond, for
background, were trees and bushes and huts and half-hidden stone
walls. And as near her as their perver