sister's husbands or sons, who were stopping on their way up or
down the valley. When it came to the pay-roll, Senor Felipe knew
to whom he paid wages; but who were fed and lodged under his
roof, that was quite another thing. It could not enter into the head
of a Mexican gentleman to make either count or account of that. It
would be a disgraceful niggardly thought.

To the Senora it seemed as if there were no longer any people
about the place. A beggarly handful, she would have said, hardly
enough to do the work of the house, or of the estate, sadly as the
latter had dwindled. In the General's day, it had been a free-handed
boast of his that never less than fifty persons, men, women and
children, were fed within his gates each day; how many more, he
did not care, nor know. But that time had indeed gone, gone
forever; and though a stranger, seeing the sudden rush and muster
at door and window, which followed on old Marda's letting fly the
water at Juan's head, would have thought, "Good heavens, do all
those women, children, and babies belong in that one house!" the
Senora's sole thought, as she at that moment went past the gate,
was, "Poor things! how few there are left of them! I am afraid old
Marda has to work too hard. I must spare Margarita more from the
house to help her." And she sighed deeply, and unconsciously held
her rosary nearer to her heart, as she went into the house and
entered her son's bedroom. The picture she saw there was one to
thrill any mother's heart; and as it met her eye, she paused on the
threshold for a second,-- only a second, however; and nothing
could have astonished Felipe Moreno so much as to have been told
that at the very moment when his mother's calm voice was saying
to him, "Good morning, my son, I hope you have slept well, and
are better," there was welling up in her heart a passionate