The father had found his book, and now paused a moment, his hand on the door-latch. “My peacock, señor,” he said, “does not mean to be vain. But he cares only for the bright feathers that hang upon his body, and he loves to strut. But, Roberta, she is wise and modest, I think.” And he went out. When Father José had disappeared through the side entrance of the chapel, Señor John opened the front door of the kitchen and stepped down to the flat stone that lay just before it. The front door opened on the father’s garden--the only garden in the whole of Los Morales. Two feet of paved walk divided the garden and led from the door to a weathered picket-gate. All the wide cracks of this walk were well weeded and neatly filled with trowel-marked adobe, and on either side of the walk stretched small squares of bright green lawn. Across these squares now, and across the stone walk, the father’s peacock was strutting, from the rose-bushes that stood against the pickets on one hand to the sweet-pea vines that screened the fence on the other. And, as he paraded, the sun glanced upon his crested head, brilliantly blue breast, and the green-and-gold semicircle of his tail plumage. The young painter was still watching the bird when his ear caught a song not from the chapel. A girl’s voice was singing it--a clear voice, if a little loud: The moon is a sun with a veil-- Lift my veil, and behold my eyes shining. The voice neared, repeating the words but somewhat disconnectedly. Then, “Go _on_!” cried the voice impatiently, breaking off the song. “Must I carry you!” The next moment Paloma came into view beyond the pickets at the corner of the kitchen. A scarlet shawl was thrown about her shoulders, and she was half-leading, half-shoving a young deer. The deer was a full-eyed creature, nimble and strong. And now it butted with its sharp horns, and now struck out swiftly with alternating front and hind feet. “Open the gate,” called Paloma. “Miguel does not wish to come in. But how shall he get grass except when Father José is in the chapel? Go on, you beast!” The young painter hastened to the gate. “Shove and lead and coax!” scolded Paloma, puffing. “Once I could do anything with him. But now he is getting too big. There! Now he’s in!” “But, look!” cried Señor John. “He’s tearing the roses!” “My life!” exclaimed the girl, hastening forward across the grass. “Stop it, Miguel! Stop it! Oh, you sinful one!” But as fast as she drove him away, Miguel returned to the rose-bushes, circling the strutting peacock with little leaps. After him raced Paloma. And as she ran, she shrieked with laughter and threw bits of dirt at the deer. “Oh, I am dying for breath!” she called. “He knows the roses are choice, you see! Is he not beautiful! Who could _help_ but love him!”