g;
but he revolved it in his mind continually. He had once gone with his
shearers to San Fernando, and there he had seen in a room of the old
Mission buildings a dozen statues of saints huddled in dusty confusion.
The San Fernando church was in crumbled ruins, and such of the church
properties as were left there were in the keeping of a Mexican not
over-careful, and not in the least devout. It would not trouble him to
part with a saint or two, Alessandro thought, and no irreverence to
the saint either; on the contrary, the greatest of reverence, since
the statue was to be taken from a place where no one cared for it, and
brought into one where it would be tenderly cherished, and worshipped
every day. If only San Fernando were not so far away, and the wooden
saints so heavy! However, it should come about yet. Majella should
have a saint; nor distance nor difficulty should keep Alessandro from
procuring for his Majel the few things that lay within his power. But he
held his peace about it. It would be a sweeter gift, if she did not know
it beforehand. He pleased himself as subtly and secretly as if he had
come of civilized generations, thinking how her eyes would dilate, if
she waked up some morning and saw the saint by her bedside; and how sure
she would be to think, at first, it was a miracle,--his dear, devout
Majella, who, with all her superior knowledge, was yet more credulous
than he. All her education had not taught her to think, as he, untaught,
had learned, in his solitude with nature.

Before Alessandro had been two days in San Pasquale, he had heard of a
piece of good-fortune which almost passed his belief, and which startled
him for once out of his usual impassive demeanor.

"You know I have a herd of cattle of your father's, and near a hundred
sheep?" said Ysidro.

"Holy Virgin!" cried Alessandro, "you do not mean that! How is that?
They told me all our stock was taken by the Americans."

"Yes, so it was, all that was in Temecula," replied Ysidro; "but in the
spring your father sent down to know if I would take a herd for him up
into the mountains, with ours, as he feared the Temecula pasture would
fall short, and the people there, who could not leave, must have their
cattle near home; so he sent a herd over,--I think, near fifty head;
and many of the cows have calved; and he sent, also, a little flock of
sheep,--a hundred, Ramon said; he herded them with ours all summer, and
he left a man up there with t