were all blighted. By this, Ambrosia Moreno established her reputation
in the country as a witch, and was never omitted from a christening or
wedding or from any auspicious event where her ill will might, in any
possible way, cause misfortune.

In time Madre Moreno grew proud of this distinction awarded to her,
dressing and acting so as to lead the people to believe her to have
supernatural assistance, and when in the time of the next generation,
the night of the marriage of my father with Neves Arguello, (to which
celebration Madre Moreno was uninvited), the adobe house in the grove of
figs, which had stood untenanted for years, was burned to the ground,
her reputation as a witch was firmly established throughout the country;
many a good woman after that event, when the wind carried off the
clothes drying on the hedges, or the soot fell down the chimney into the
kitchen at night, knew that the Madre was about, playing her mischievous
pranks.

One day Mercedes Dana, a girl whom we rather felt sorry for, (her
mother, who was a de los Santos, having married an American from
Boston), having less faith in Madre Moreno's power than the rest of her
neighbours had tried that never-failing test for witchcraft, and placed
a piece of steel under the chair where the Madre was sitting, but she,
too, was at once converted from her skepticism, for when the Madre
wanted to leave she was unable to move until the bit of steel was taken
away.

It was considered a dangerous experiment, and even Mercedes' little
spark of Yankee "devil-may-care" burned very low after it, although the
only thing that went wrong at the Dana's that year was that the hens
laid soft-shelled eggs, which trouble was soon remedied by mixing a