Page:Helen Hunt--Ramona.djvu/285

Rh “blessed child,” Ramona, at her confirmation. A warmer token of his love and trust he could not have bestowed upon her, and to Ramona's religious and affectionate heart it had always seemed a bond and an assurance, not only of Father Salvierderra's love, but of the love and protection of the now sainted Peyri.

As she pronounced the last words of her trusting prayer, and slipped the last of the golden beads along on its string, a thread of sunlight shot into the cañon through a deep narrow gap in its rocky eastern crest,—shot in for a second, no more; fell aslant the rosary, lighted it; by a flash as if of fire, across the fine-cut facets of the beads, on Ramona's hands, and on the white face of the ivory Christ. Only a flash, and it was gone! To both Ramona and Alessandro it came like an omen,—like a message straight from the Virgin. Could she choose better messenger,—she, the compassionate one, the loving woman in heaven; mother of the Christ to whom they prayed, through her,—mother, for whose sake He would regard their least cry,—could she choose better messenger, or swifter, than the sunbeam, to say that she heard and would help them in these sore straits.

Perhaps there were not, in the whole great world, at that moment to be found, two souls who were experiencing so vivid a happiness as thrilled the veins of these two friendless ones, on their knees, alone in the wilderness, gazing half awe-stricken at the shining rosary.