and rugged a shrub.

I did not stop to rest until I had reached a high point of the path
where a sudden turn along the edge of a precipice threw open the whole
view of the valley. It was yet early morning, and I watched the floating
bits of mist drifting above the dark canoñs, canoñs so narrow that the
sun never reached their beds. Through clumps of leafless oaks the noisy
arroyo could be seen hidden here and there by the thick foliage of some
glistening madroño, with its red branches, or by dark, lustrous laurels.
Bunches of mistletoe upon the dry branches of the oaks smiled fresh and
green from their stolen perches like little oases in a desert of gray.
Sometimes an early bee flew by me with hungry humming, and the sharp
call of the jay would rise from the depths to mingle with the steady
sighing of the wind through the giant redwoods. I had taken my favourite
little mare, who never needed the bridle, being guided by my voice or
slightest motion, and as I sat with arms akimbo under my poncho I felt
as I were free again from all the trouble of life and could not but
halloa for very exuberance of joy. Presently there came an answer from
the cliffs above, and looking up I beheld Ysidria, mounted on the black
horse I had some months before given to Madre Moreno, to be used by her
niece, who was not so strong as she had been, and unable to walk so much
as formerly.

"Wait, and I will come down," she called and disappeared among the
shrubs.

Ysidria was much changed, she had grown thin and nervous during the
year; yet, failing as she did in body, her eyes seemed every day to
become more beautiful, as if they absorbed all her life. With the
growing brilliancy of her eyes, increased also their defective sight,