Then, still more stealthily, he carried them, a few at a
time, concealed in the bottom of a cart, under a load of hay or of
brush, to the house of the Senora, who felt herself deeply honored
by his confidence, and received everything as a sacred trust, to be
given back into the hands of the Church again, whenever the
Missions should be restored, of which at that time all Catholics
had good hope. And so it had come about that no bedroom in the
Senora's house was without a picture or a statue of a saint or of the
Madonna; and some had two; and in the little chapel in the garden
the altar was surrounded by a really imposing row of holy and
apostolic figures, which had looked down on the splendid
ceremonies of the San Luis Rey Mission, in Father Peyri's time, no
more benignly than they now did on the humbler worship of the
Senora's family in its diminished estate. That one had lost an eye,
another an arm, that the once brilliant colors of the drapery were
now faded and shabby, only enhanced the tender reverence with
which the Senora knelt before them, her eyes filling with indignant
tears at thought of the heretic hands which had wrought such
defilement.
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