A warmer token
of his love and trust he could not have bestowed upon her, and to
Ramona's religious and affectionate heart it had always seemed a
bond and an assurance, not only of Father Salvierderra's love, but
of the love and protection of the now sainted Peyri.
As she pronounced the last words of her trusting prayer, and
slipped the last of the golden beads along on its string, a thread of
sunlight shot into the canon through a deep narrow gap in its rocky
eastern crest,-- shot in for a second, no more; fell aslant the rosary,
lighted it; by a flash as if of fire, across the fine-cut facets of the
beads, on Ramona's hands, and on the white face of the ivory
Christ. Only a flash, and it was gone! To both Ramona and
Alessandro it came like an omen,-- like a message straight from
the Virgin. Could she choose better messenger,-- she, the
compassionate one, the loving woman in heaven; mother of the
Christ to whom they prayed, through her,-- mother, for whose sake
He would regard their least cry,-- could she choose better
messenger, or swifter, than the sunbeam, to say that she heard and
would help them in these sore straits'
Perhaps there were not, in the whole great world, at that moment
to be found, two souls who were experiencing so vivid a happiness
as thrilled the veins of these two friendless ones, on their knees,
alone in the wilderness, gazing half awe-stricken at the shining
rosary.
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