Page:Helen Hunt--Ramona.djvu/59

Rh “Yes, Father, all well,” she answered. “Felipe has been ill with a fever; but he is out now, these ten days, and fretting for—for your coming.”

Ramona had like to have said the literal truth,—“fretting for the sheep-shearing,” but recollected herself in time.

“And the Señora?” said the Father.

“She is well,” answered Ramona, gently, but with a slight change of tone,—so slight as to be almost imperceptible; but an acute observer would have always detected it in the girl's tone whenever she spoke of the Señora Moreno. “And you,—are you well yourself, Father?” she asked affectionately, noting with her quick, loving eye how feebly the old man walked, and that he carried what she had never before seen in his hand,—a stout staff to steady his steps. “You must be very tired with the long journey on foot.”

“Ay, Ramona, I am tired,” he replied. “Old age is conquering me. It will not be many times more that I shall see this place.”

“Oh, do not say that, Father,” cried Ramona; “you can ride, when it tires you too much to walk. The Señora said, only the other day, that she wished you would let her give you a horse; that it was not right for you to take these long journeys on foot. You know we have hundreds of horses. It is nothing, one horse,” she added, seeing the Father slowly shake his head.

“No;” he said, “it is not that. I could not refuse anything at the hands of the Señora. But it was the rule of our order to go on foot. We must deny the flesh. Look at our beloved master in this land, Father Junipero, when he was past eighty, walking from San Diego to Monterey, and all the while a running ulcer in one of his legs, for which most men would have taken to a bed, to be healed. It is a sin-