They arose.
He saluted and turned to go. Then he hesitated. "My will is that of my superior."
He walked away a few steps, paused, and stood facing her, with:
"'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.' My children of the wilderness cry unto me—unto me."
Making the sign of the cross, he continued slowly down the road.
The joy of triumph shone in the señora's smile.
CHAPTER X
THE BEGINNING OF THE BALL AT SEÑOR
MENDOZA'S HACIENDA HOUSE
If taste and industry had been used in decorating the exterior of Señor Mendoza's mansion for the great ballroom function, the interior gave evidence of no lack of these same qualities.
The artistic spirit of the Latin is to the manner born, and the early Californian developed his inheritance by daily communings with the beauties of earth, and air, and sky. Mendoza, moreover, had seen the wonder spots from Paris to Madrid and Vienna; and the fruits of his experience had ripened and mellowed in the years of wealth and leisure he had spent on his estate at Mission San José.