the fascinations of that paternity denied to him; how he had deemed it
his duty to struggle against the thrill of baby fingers laid upon his
yellow cheeks, the pleading of inarticulate words, the eloquence of
wonder-seeing and mutely questioning eyes; how he had succumbed
again and again, and then struggled no more, seeing only in them the
suggestion of childhood made incarnate in the Holy Babe. And yet, even
as he thought, he drew from his gown a little shoe, and laid it beside
his breviary. It was Francisco's baby slipper, a duplicate to those worn
by the miniature waxen figure of the Holy Virgin herself in her niche in
the transept.

Had he felt during these years any qualms of conscience at this
concealment of the child's sex? None. For to him the babe was sexless,
as most befitted one who was to live and die at the foot of the altar.
There was no attempt to deceive God; what mattered else? Nor was he
withholding the child from the ministrations of the sacred sisters;
there was no convent near the Mission, and as each year passed, the
difficulty of restoring her to the position and duties of her sex became
greater and more dangerous. And then the acolyte's destiny was sealed
by what again appeared to Father Pedro as a direct interposition of
Providence. The child developed a voice of such exquisite sweetness and
purity that an angel seemed to have strayed into the little choir, and
kneeling worshipers below, transported, gazed upwards, half expectant of
a heavenly light breaking through the gloom of the raftered ceiling.
The fame of the little singer filled the valley of San Carmel; it was a
miracle vouchsafed the Mission; Don Jose Peralta remembered, ah yes, to
have heard in old Spain of boy choristers with such voices!

And was this sacred trust to be withdrawn from him? Was this life which
he had brought out of an unknown world of sin, unstained and pure,