rds at San Luis
Rey for twenty years; few were as skilful as he; he himself owned nearly
as many sheep as the Senora Moreno; but this Juan did not know. Neither
did he realize that Alessandro, as Chief Pablo's son, had a position
of his own not without dignity and authority. To Juan, an Indian was
an Indian, and that was the end of it. The gentle courteousness of
Alessandro's manner, his quiet behavior, were all set down in Juan's
mind to the score of the boy's native amiability and sweetness. If Juan
had been told that the Senor Felipe himself had not been more carefully
trained in all precepts of kindliness, honorable dealing, and polite
usage, by the Senora, his mother, than had Alessandro by his father, he
would have opened his eyes wide. The standards of the two parents
were different, to be sure; but the advantage could not be shown to be
entirely on the Senora's side. There were many things that Felipe knew,
of which Alessandro was profoundly ignorant; but there were others
in which Alessandro could have taught Felipe; and when it came to the
things of the soul, and of honor, Alessandro's plane was the higher
of the two. Felipe was a fair-minded, honorable man, as men go; but
circumstances and opportunity would have a hold on him they could never
get on Alessandro. Alessandro would not lie; Felipe might. Alessandro
was by nature full of veneration and the religious instinct; Felipe had
been trained into being a good Catholic. But they were both singularly
pure-minded, open-hearted, generous-souled young men, and destined, by
the strange chance which had thus brought them into familiar relations,
to become strongly attached to each other. After the day on which
the madness of Felipe's fever had been so miraculously soothed and
controlled by Alessandro's singing, he was never again wildly delirious.
When he waked in the night from that first long sleep, he was, as Father
Salvierderra had predicted, in his right mind; knew every one, and asked
rational questions. But the over-heated and excited brain did not
for some time wholly resume normal action. At intervals he wandered,
especially when just arousing from sleep; and, strangely enough, it
was always for Alessandro that he called at these times, and it seemed
always to be music that he craved. He recollected Alessandro's having
sung to him that first night. "I was not so crazy as you all thought,"
he said. "I knew a great many of the things I said, but I couldn't h