r time."

These saints of Father Uria were given the run of the entire mission,
and were known to all its inhabitants. Although every one was kind to
them, the cats were dignified and distant toward all but the Father and
Benito, after the latter had lived there a few months. It had gradually
become one of Benito's duties to keep an eye on them; shut them up when
the Father did not wish them around; and when, as occasionally happened,
they ran away, to search for them. Usually they would return of their
own accord the second day, if not found the night before; but the Father
could not sleep unless he knew his precious animals were housed safely,
and an effort was always made to find the truants before night set in.

From the time Benito and Maria made San Buenaventura their home, Fortune
again turned her face toward them. Benito, with steady employment as the
Father's gardener and trusted servant, was prosperous and happy; while
Maria once more had her chickens, although the demand for her poultry
and eggs was smaller than she had found in her former home in Mexico.
She seldom missed her old associates, busy as she was, and content with
her simple tasks the whole day long. What a quiet, peaceful life was
that at the California missions in the old days! Perhaps, reader,
you think humdrum would be the more appropriate adjective to use than
peaceful or even quiet. And to one like our Father Uria, thousands of
miles from his early home, cut off from all the pleasures and advantages
of ordinary social intercourse, it was, as we have seen, more, much
more, than humdrum. But for Maria, the life at the mission was not
unlike that they had been accustomed to in their former Mexican home.
California was Mexico in those days, and the life greatly similar.

About two years after Benito's arrival at San Buenaventura, a dreadful
misfortune befell Father Uria, in the death of his largest and finest
cat--San Francisco. This saint had always manifested a most singular and
inveterate propensity, to hunt tarantulas. More than once he had been
discovered when just on the point of beginning a battle with one of
those monsters, and had been stopped in the nick of time. With almost
constant watchfulness, the Father had succeeded in preserving the life
of his cat for many years; but the reader has already guessed what the
end was to be. After an absence of three whole days, during which the
Father was almost distracted, Benito found the saint