exquisite gentleness; "it is not you who are to blame, if I am deaf. I
have fancied for a year I did not hear quite as well as I once did.
But about the Indians, Juan; did not Senor Felipe tell you that he
had positively engaged the same band of shearers we had last
autumn, Alessandro's band from Temecula? They will wait until
we are ready for them. Senor Felipe will send a messenger for
them. He thinks them the best shearers in the country. He will be
well enough in a week or two, he thinks, and the poor sheep must
bear their loads a few days longer. Are they looking well, do you
think, Juan? Will the crop be a good one? General Moreno used to
say that you could reckon up the wool-crop to a pound, while it
was on the sheep's backs."

"Yes, Senora," answered the mollified Juan; "the poor beasts look
wonderfully well considering the scant feed they have had all
winter. We'll not come many pounds short of our last year's crop, if
any. Though, to be sure, there is no telling in what case that --
Luigo will bring his flock back."

The Senora smiled, in spite of herself, at the pause and gulp with
which Juan had filled in the hiatus where he had longed to set a
contemptuous epithet before Luigo's name.

This was another of the instances where the Senora's will and Juan
Canito's had clashed and he did not dream of it, having set it all
down as usual to the score of young Senor Felipe.

Encouraged by the Senora's smile, Juan proceeded: "Senor Felipe
can see no fault in Luigo, because they were boys together; but I
can tell him, he will rue it, one of these mornings, when he finds a