with all the repressed passion of his heart. It was not as though he
were going to a poor and mean mission, as were some of those in Nueva
California. Father Zalvidea had been more than once to San Juan
Capistrano, fifty miles south of San Gabriel, and knew well that it was
large, although not as rich as it had been at one time; but his was the
nature of the cat, which always returns to its old home. Father Zalvidea
knew a priest was needed at San Juan Capistrano, and none was as
available as himself; but he was human, and this last sacrifice of self
was more than he could make without a murmur.

At last he returned to his house, and, after breakfast, began to make
his preparations. A week later saw him leaving the mission with his
personal belongings, the most valuable of which appeared to be a heavy
wooden box, about the size and shape of a brick, and which he would not
allow out of his own hands, but carried with him, fastened to the pommel
of his saddle. What was in this box no one knew but the Father himself.



Behold Father Zalvidea at Mission San Juan Capistrano! Although at first
murmuring at the change of his scene of labor, yet, after finding it
inevitable, he had submitted to it with all due humility, and with
energy and even enthusiasm had thrown himself into the work at hand.
Mission San Juan Capistrano was fallen away sadly from the high position
it had held ten years before: neophytes were still many, but they had
been allowed to follow their own devices; the religious life,
consequently, was neglected, as well as the cultivation of the mission
lands. It was a sad prospect that met the Father's eyes, the first time
he took a survey of the fields and corrals and vineyards of the mission.
On every side his well-trained eye saw the marks of lack of care in