the estate, and living as a Mexican gentleman should; that is, so far as now remains possible in this unfortunate country. But about the sheep-shearing, Felipe. Do you wish to have it begun before the Father is here? Of course, Alessandro is all ready with his band. It is but two days' journey for a messenger to bring him. Father Salvierderra cannot be here before the 10th of the month. He leaves Santa Barbara on the 1st, and he will walk all the way,—a good six days' journey, for he is old now and feeble; then he must stop in Ventura for a Sunday, and a day at the Ortega's ranch, and at the Lopez's,—there, there is a christening. Yes, the 10th is the very earliest that he can be here,—near two weeks from now. So far as your getting up is concerned, it might perhaps be next week. You will be nearly well by that time.”      

       “Yes, indeed,” laughed Felipe, stretching himself out in the bed and giving a kick to the bedclothes that made the high bedposts and the fringed canopy roof shake and creak; “I am well now, if it were not for this cursed weakness when I stand on my feet. I believe it would do me good to get out of doors.”      

       In truth, Felipe had been hankering for the sheep-shearing himself. It was a brisk, busy, holiday sort of time to him, hard as he worked in it; and two weeks looked long to wait.     

       “It is always thus after a fever,” said his mother. “The weakness lasts many weeks. I am not sure that you will be strong enough even in two weeks to do the packing; but, as Juan Can said this morning, he stood at the packing-bag when you were a boy, and there was no need of waiting for you for that!”      

       “He said that, did he!” exclaimed Felipe, wrathfully. “The old man is getting insolent. I'll tell him that nobody will pack the sacks but myself, while I am master here; and I will have the sheep-shearing when I please, and not before.”      

       “I suppose it would not be wise to say that it is not to take place till the Father comes, would it?” asked the Senora, hesitatingly, as if the thing were evenly balanced in her mind. “The Father has not that hold on the younger men he used to have, and I have thought that even in Juan himself I have detected a remissness. The spirit of unbelief is spreading in the country since the Americans are running up and down everywhere seeking money, like 

 Prev. P 13/372 next