The house he was in was a typical native three-room dwelling, built of strips of _macana_ palm, set upright and tied together with pieces of slender, tough _bejuco_ vine. The interstices between the strips were filled with mud, and the whole whitewashed. The floors were dirt, trodden hard; the steep-pitched roof was thatched with palm. A few chairs like the one he occupied, the rude, uncovered table, some cheap prints and a battered crucifix on the wall, were the only furnishings of the living room. While he was eating, the people of the town congregated quietly about the open door. Friendly curiosity to see the new Padre, and sincere desire to welcome him animated their simple minds. Naked babes crawled to the threshold and peeped timidly in. Coarsely clad women and young girls, many of the latter bedizened with bits of bright ribbon or cheap trinkets, smiled their gentle greetings. Black, dignified men, bare of feet, and wearing white cotton trousers and black _ruanas_--the cape affected by the poor males of the inlands--respectfully doffed their straw hats and bowed to him. Rosendo's wife appeared from the kitchen and extended her hand to him in unfeigned hospitality. Attired in a fresh calico gown, her black hair plastered back over her head and tied with a clean black ribbon, her bare feet encased in hemp sandals, she bore herself with that grace and matronly dignity so indicative of her Spanish forbears, and so particularly characteristic of the inhabitants of this "valley of the pleasant 'yes.'" Breakfast finished, the priest stepped to the doorway and raised his hand in the invocation that was evidently expected from him. "_Dominus vobiscum_," he repeated, not mechanically, not insincerely, but in a spirit of benevolence, of genuine well-wishing, which his contact with the child a few minutes before seemed to have aroused. The people bent their heads piously and murmured, "_Et cum spiritu tuo._" The open door looked out upon the central _plaza_, where stood a large church of typical colonial design and construction, and with a single lateral bell tower. The building was set well up on a platform of shale, with broad shale steps, much broken and worn, leading up to it on all sides. Josè stepped out and mingled with the crowd, first regarding the old church curiously, and then looking vainly for the little girl, and sighing his disappointment when he did not see her.