word. You would be struck dead if you laid your hand on her! I fear even the thought was a sin.' 'There was a small figure of her in the wall of our house,' said Alessandro. 'It was from San Luis Rey. I do not know what became of it,—if it were left behind, or if they took it with my father's things to Pachanga. I did not see it there. When I go again, I will look.' 'Again!' cried Ramona. 'What say you? You go again to Pachanga? You will not leave me, Alessandro?' At the bare mention of Alessandro's leaving her, Ramona's courage always vanished. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, she was transformed from the dauntless, confident, sunny woman, who bore him up as it were on wings of hope and faith, to a timid, shrinking, despondent child, crying out in alarm, and clinging to the hand. 'After a time, dear Majella, when you are wonted to the place, I must go, to fetch the wagon and the few things that were ours. There is the raw-hide bed which was Father Peyri's, and he gave to my father. Majella will like to lie on that. My father believed it had great virtue.' 'Like that you made for Felipe?' she asked. 'Yes; but it is not so large. In those days the cattle were not so large as they are now: this is not so broad as Senor Felipe's. There are chairs, too, from the Mission, three of them, one almost as fine as those on your veranda at home. They were given to my father. And music- books,—beautiful parchment books! Oh, I hope those are not lost, Majella! If Jose had lived, he would have looked after it all. But in the confusion, all the things belonging to the village were thrown into wagons together, and no one knew where anything was. But all the people knew my father's chairs and the books of the music. If the Americans did not steal them, everything will be safe. My people do not steal. There was never but one thief in our village, and my father had him so whipped, he ran away and never came back. I heard he was living in San Jacinto, and was a thief yet, spite of all that whipping he had. I think if it is in the blood to be a thief, not even whipping will take it out, Majella.' 'Like the Americans,' she said, half laughing, but with tears in the voice. 'Whipping would not cure them.' It wanted yet more than an hour of dawn when they reached the crest of the hill from which they looked down on the San Pasquale valley. Two such crests and valleys they had passed; this was the broadest of the three valleys, and the hills walling it were softer and rounder of contour than any they had yet seen. To the east and northeast lay ranges of high mountains, their tops lost in the clouds. The whole sky was overcast and gray. 'If it were spring, this would mean rain,' said Alessandro; 'but it cannot rain, I think, now.' 'No!' laughed Ramona, 'not till we get our house done. Will it be of adobe, Alessandro?' 'Dearest Majella, not yet! At first it must be of the tule. They are very comfortable while it is warm, and before winter I will build one of adobe.' 'Two houses! Wasteful Alessandro! If the tule house is good, I shall not let you, Alessandro, build another.' Ramona's mirthful moments bewildered Alessandro. To his slower temperament and saddened nature they seemed preternatural; as if she were all of a sudden changed into a bird, or some gay creature outside the pale of human life,—outside and above it. 'You speak as the birds sing, my Majella,' he said slowly. 'It was well to name you Majel; only the wood-dove has not joy in her voice, as you have. She says only that she loves and waits.' 'I say that, too, Alessandro!' replied Ramona, reaching out both her arms towards him. The horses were walking slowly, and very close side by side. Baba and Benito were now such friends they liked to pace closely side by side; and Baba and Benito were by no means without instinctive recognitions of the sympathy between their riders. Already Benito knew Ramona's voice, and answered it with pleasure; and Baba had long ago learned to stop when his mistress laid her hand on Alessandro's shoulder. He stopped now, and it was long minutes before he had the signal to go on again. 'Majella! Majella!' cried Alessandro, as, grasping both her hands in his, he held them to his cheeks, to his neck, to his mouth, 'if the saints would ask Alessandro to be a martyr for Majella's sake, like those she was telling of, then she would know if Alessandro loved her! But what can Alessandro do now? What, oh, what? Majella gives all; Alessandro gives nothing!' and he bowed his forehead on her hands, before he put them back gently on Baba's neck. Tears filled Ramona's eyes. How should she win this saddened man, this distrusting lover, to the joy which was his desert? 'Alessandro can do one thing,' she said, insensibly falling into his mode of speaking,—'one thing for his Majella: never, never say that he has nothing to give her. When he says that, he makes Majella a liar; for she has said that he is all the world to her,—he himself all the world which she desires. Is Majella a liar?' But it was even now with an ecstasy only half joy, the other half anguish, that Alessandro replied: 'Majella cannot lie. Majella is like the saints. Alessandro is hers.' When they rode down into the valley, the whole village was astir. The vintage-time had nearly passed; everywhere were to be seen large, flat baskets of grapes drying in the sun. Old women and children were turning these, or pounding acorns in the deep stone bowls; others were beating the yucca-stalks, and putting them to soak in water; the oldest women were sitting on the ground, weaving baskets. There were not many men in the village now; two large bands were away at work,—one at the autumn sheep-shearing, and one working on a large irrigating ditch at San Bernardino. In different directions from the village slow-moving herds of goats or of cattle could be seen, being driven to pasture on the hills; some men were ploughing; several groups were at work building houses of bundles of the tule reeds. 'These are some of the Temecula people,' said Alessandro; 'they are building themselves new houses here. See those piles of bundles darker-colored than the rest. Those are their old roofs they brought from Temecula. There, there comes Ysidro!' he cried joyfully, as a man, well-mounted, who had been riding from point to point in the village, came galloping towards them. As soon as Ysidro recognized Alessandro, he flung himself from his horse. Alessandro did the same, and both running swiftly towards each other till they met, they embraced silently. Ramona, riding up, held out her hand, saying, as she did so, 'Ysidro?' Pleased, yet surprised, at this confident and assured greeting, Ysidro saluted her, and turning to Alessandro, said in their own tongue, 'Who is this woman whom you bring, that has heard my name?' 'My wife!' answered Alessandro, in the same tongue. 'We were married last night by Father Gaspara. She comes from the house of the Senora Moreno. We will live in San Pasquale, if you have land for me, as you have said.' What astonishment Ysidro felt, he showed none. Only a grave and courteous welcome was in his face and in his words as he said, 'It is well. There is room. You are welcome.' But when he heard the soft Spanish syllables in which Ramona spoke to Alessandro, and Alessandro, translating her words to him, said, 'Majel speaks only in the Spanish tongue, but she will learn ours,' a look of disquiet passed over his countenance. His heart feared for Alessandro, and he said, 'Is she, then, not Indian? Whence got she the name of Majel?' A look of swift intelligence from Alessandro reassured him. 'Indian on the mother's side!' said Alessandro, 'and she belongs in heart to our people. She is alone, save for me. She is one blessed of the Virgin, Ysidro. She will help us. The name Majel I have given her, for she is like the wood-dove; and she is glad to lay her old name down forever, to bear this new name in our tongue.'
