hem. They will be down next week. It is
time they were sheared."

Before he had finished speaking, Alessandro had vanished, bounding like
a deer. Ysidro stared after him; but seeing him enter the doorway of the
little tule hut, he understood, and a sad smile passed over his face. He
was not yet persuaded that this marriage of Alessandro's would turn out
a blessing. "What are a handful of sheep to her!" he thought.

Breathless, panting, Alessandro burst into Ramona's presence. "Majella!
my Majella! There are cattle--and sheep," he cried. "The saints be
praised! We are not like the beggars, as I said."

"I told you that God would give us food, dear Alessandro," replied
Ramona, gently.

"You do not wonder! You do not ask!" he cried, astonished at her calm.
"Does Majella think that a sheep or a steer can come down from the
skies?"

"Nay, not as our eyes would see," she answered; "but the holy ones who
live in the skies can do anything they like on the earth. Whence came
these cattle, and how are they ours?"

When he told her, her face grew solemn. "Do you remember that night in
the willows," she said, "when I was like one dying, because you would
not bring me with you? You had no faith that there would be food. And
I told you then that the saints never forsook those who loved them, and
that God would give food. And even at that moment, when you did not know
it, there were your cattle and your sheep feeding in the mountains,
in the keeping of God! Will my Alessandro believe after this?" and she
threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

"It is true," said Alessandro. "I will believe, after this, that the
saints love my Majella."

But as he walked at a slower pace back to Ysidro, he said to himself:
"Majella did not see Temecula. What would she have said about the
saints, if she had seen that, and seen the people dying for want of
food? It is only for her that the saints pray. They are displeased with
my people."

XX

ONE year, and a half of another year, had passed. Sheep-shearings and
vintages had been in San Pasquale; and Alessandro's new house, having
been beaten on by the heavy spring rains, looked no longer new. It stood
on the south side of the valley,--too far, Ramona felt, from the blessed
bell; but there had not been land enough for wheat-fields any nearer,
and she could see the chapel, and the posts, and, on a clear day, the
bell itself. The house was small. "Small to hold so much joy," she