Passing her own loom she said: "This is a design after which many blankets were made for Constancia Alvarado, she who married Señor Mendoza. The señor's hair, then, was as black as any of yours. Don Marcel Hernandez has ordered six of each of these patterns. I shouldn't wonder if it means his daughter is going to marry. My man went to Spain once with Señor Hernandez, to bring back horses. "Tula, hasten, thy loom moves slowly, as if tired. Wait till noon before resting. Very good, Encarnacion; the best you've done. And thou, too, Jesusa." As the matrona came to Pepita's side she said in low voice: "Girl, worry thou not. Soon another takes thy loom and thou goest to service with the Lady Carmelita, without doubt. The padre will make recommend of thee; but remember his words in last Sunday's sermon: 'Have a care as to what thou seest, what thou hearest, and what thou sayest.'" "I am not the only one that talks too much." Marta recalled something to be done inside the house and went away, telling the weavers to be industrious during her absence. When she was out of sight Encarnacion strolled over to the end loom. "Marta has pride that Padre Majin de Catala, of Mission Santa Clara, baptized her mother. Padre Junipero Serra himself baptized my grandfather, in San Diego Mission. Padre Junipero always said that Indians who work hard and pray the Virgin every day would be high in heaven when they died. I never heard he said that of lady's maids," looking at Pepita. Pepita was happy in anticipation, and so made no reply. "Last year, when I was at Yerba Buena, in the family of Señor Arguello," said Jesusa, whose loom had become silent the moment of Marta's departure, "a very old man at Mission Dolores said the sea did not always run in and out there, past Yerba Buena, but mountains once were where ships sail now. I asked him if white men had dug the way for the ocean, and he said white men never work." Jesusa was proud of her temporary residence in Yerba Buena, and brought it forward at every opportunity. "Will the white men, then, who are not padres, go to heaven?" inquired Tula, who had abandoned her work. The theology of none of them was equal to a reply for this question. "Where do you suppose all the peon soldiers have gone? I saw many, many marching away this morning, Señor Mendoza leading them. San José de Guadalupe! but they looked handsome!" said Elasia, a girl who had seated herself on the ground, her hands lying idly in her lap. "Oho! the peon Ildefranco alone didst thou see. We know," said some one. "Yes, yes," joined in others. "You have no need to talk. You were all watching them, and with your mouths wide open. I saw you," retorted Elasia. Everyone began to laugh. "Comes Marta! Comes Marta!" cried Encarnacion from her point of vantage. There was a general scurrying to place. When the matrona came out the silence was too intense to be sincere. She went from loom to loom.