them, as one would disentangle a skein of silk. It was a fantastic
sort of dilemma, and not unpleasing. Except that the Father was in
haste to reach his journey's end, he would have enjoyed threading
his way through the golden meshes. Suddenly he heard faint notes
of singing. He paused,-- listened. It was the voice of a woman. It
was slowly drawing nearer, apparently from the direction in which
he was going. At intervals it ceased abruptly, then began again; as
if by a sudden but brief interruption, like that made by question
and answer. Then, peering ahead through the mustard blossoms, he
saw them waving and bending, and heard sounds as if they were
being broken. Evidently some one entering on the path from the
opposite end had been caught in the fragrant thicket as he was. The
notes grew clearer, though still low and sweet as the twilight notes
of the thrush; the mustard branches waved more and more
violently; light steps were now to be heard. Father Salvierderra
stood still as one in a dream, his eyes straining forward into the
golden mist of blossoms. In a moment more came, distinct and
clear to his ear, the beautiful words of the second stanza of Saint
Francis's inimitable lyric, "The Canticle of the Sun:"

"Praise be to thee, O Lord, for all thy creatures, and especially for
our brother the Sun,-- who illuminates the day, and by his beauty
and splendor shadows forth unto us thine."

"Ramona!" exclaimed the Father, his thin cheeks flushing with
pleasure. "The blessed child!" And as he spoke, her face came into
sight, set in a swaying frame of the blossoms, as she parted them
lightly to right and left with her hands, and half crept, half danced
through the loop-hole openings thus made. Father Salvierderra was
past eighty, but his blood was not too old to move quicker at the