"San Jacinto Mountain. Do not look
back, Majella! Do not look back!" he cried, as he saw Ramona,
with streaming eyes, gazing back towards San Pasquale. "Do not
look back! It is gone! Pray to the saints now, Majella! Pray! Pray!"
XXI
THE Senora Moreno was dying. It had been a sad two years in the
Moreno house. After the first excitement following Ramona's
departure had died away, things had settled down in a surface
similitude of their old routine. But nothing was really the same. No
one was so happy as before. Juan Canito was heart-broken. There
had been set over him the very Mexican whose coming to the
place he had dreaded. The sheep had not done well; there had been
a drought; many had died of hunger,-- a thing for which the new
Mexican overseer was not to blame, though it pleased Juan to hold
him so, and to say from morning till night that if his leg had not
been broken, or if the lad Alessandro had been there, the
wool-crop would have been as big as ever. Not one of the servants
liked this Mexican; he had a sorry time of it, poor fellow; each
man and woman on the place had or fancied some reason for being
set against him; some from sympathy with Juan Can, some from
idleness and general impatience; Margarita, most of all, because
he was not Alessandro.
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