wagon-loads of sacred treasures. Then, still more
stealthily, he carried them, a few at a time, concealed in the bottom of
a cart, under a load of hay or of brush, to the house of the Senora, who
felt herself deeply honored by his confidence, and received everything
as a sacred trust, to be given back into the hands of the Church again,
whenever the Missions should be restored, of which at that time all
Catholics had good hope. And so it had come about that no bedroom in the
Senora's house was without a picture or a statue of a saint or of the
Madonna; and some had two; and in the little chapel in the garden the
altar was surrounded by a really imposing row of holy and apostolic
figures, which had looked down on the splendid ceremonies of the San
Luis Rey Mission, in Father Peyri's time, no more benignly than they
now did on the humbler worship of the Senora's family in its diminished
estate. That one had lost an eye, another an arm, that the once
brilliant colors of the drapery were now faded and shabby, only enhanced
the tender reverence with which the Senora knelt before them, her eyes
filling with indignant tears at thought of the heretic hands which
had wrought such defilement. Even the crumbling wreaths which had been
placed on some of the statues' heads at the time of the last ceremonial
at which they had figured in the Mission, had been brought away with
them by the devout sacristan, and the Senora had replaced each one,
holding it only a degree less sacred than the statue itself.

This chapel was dearer to the Senora than her house. It had been built
by the General in the second year of their married life. In it her four
children had been christened, and from it all but one, her handsome
Felipe, had been buried while they were yet infants. In the General's
time, while the estate was at its best, and hundreds of Indians living
within its borders, there was many a Sunday when the scene to be
witnessed there was like the scenes at the Missions,--the chapel full of
kneeling men and women; those who could not find room inside kneeling
on the garden walks outside; Father Salvierderra, in gorgeous
vestments, coming, at close of the services, slowly down the aisle, the
close-packed rows of worshippers parting to right and left to let him
through, all looking up eagerly for his blessing, women giving him
offerings of fruit or flowers, and holding up their babies that he might
lay his hands on their heads. No one but Fat