Page:The Valley of Adventure (1926).pdf/312

 As the wind moved through the vineyard this night the leaves took wing like flocks of migrating birds, sometimes rising to little heights above the stems that bore them, more frequently drifting in a shower of slow-floating, listless sails, to settle with soft sighing upon their crisp-dry companions with melancholy resignation to this thankless severance after a long and faithful service.

There was more than the whisper of falling grape leaves in the vineyard; more than the low piping of the wind among bare branches, soft as the lutestrings of the night. There was the sound of many feet in soft Indian shoes, and the sound of feet unshod; and the low murmur of voices held in awe, where the people came from the village, old and young, to wait for the passing of the beautiful white lady, and uphold her suffering body on the flood of their sympathetic prayers.

For Don Juan, friend of the oppressed, was blind, and this one was pleading with the Holy Virgin to give him back his sight. She would pass that way tonight, humbly walking on her bare knees from the door of Don Geronimo's house where she lived, to the altar of the church, hoping to gain through her suffering and humility the favor of Our Blessed Señora. Four of the little girls who learned their lessons and the use of the needle under her gentle hand, were to walk beside her, clothed all in white, carrying candles to light her agonizing way. There was no secret hiding her deed or its purpose; any person who had the heart to bear her suffering,